Presentation

We include here descriptive statistics of the resulting database of exports and imports at current and constant prices from 1948 to 2020. This data extends the data published by the United Nations for each country (the Yearbooks of International Trade Statistics).

The coverage of trade values at current prices series begins with 144 (exports) and 139 (imports) in 1948, rises to 168 (exports and imports) in 1950 and achieves complete coverage only from 2012 onwards. Missing series decline from 25 per cent in 1948, to 14 per cent in 1950, and eight per cent in 1980. By 2000, under one per cent of polities are missing their trade values. There are some important omissions, including Vietnam until 1976, Bhutan, Mongolia, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea before 1980, and a group of small Pacific islands for parts of the period. A further group of eight Caribbean islands with missing observations is included using data from Bulmer-Thomas, V. (2012).

The database on constant prices features a total of 175 countries, which represents 80 per cent of the total number of polities in 2020, but 97 per cent of the total value of world trade in current prices over the period 1948-2020. Of these 175 countries, 48 are from Africa, 40 from the Americas, 31 from Asia, 50 from Europe and six from Oceania. Of the 175 constant price series, 104 use reconstructed AFT deflators, while 71 use the United Nations deflators compiled from the Yearbooks of International Trade Statistics, UNCTAD, COMTRADE, as well as the group of Caribbean countries from Bulmer Thomas (2012). Although most of the deflators in the sample, as well as just under half of the total number of polities in 2020, are AFT series, they represent 35 per cent of the total trade over the period, since they include predominantly low- and middle-income countries with smaller trade shares.

Detailed sources for each country can be found in the individual excel country files and in the Appendix.