World Trade

Description

The World Trade Dataset

Background

The files contain data on trade miscellaneous
manufactures of metal among 80 countries in 1994.
All countries with entries in the paper version of
the Commodity Trade Statistics published by the
United Nations were included, but for some countries
the 1993 data (Austria, Seychelles, Bangladesh,
Croatia, and Barbados) or 1995 data (South Africa and
Ecuador) were used because they were not available for
1994. Countries which are not sovereign are excluded
because additional economic data were not available:
Faeroe Islands and Greenland, which belong to Denmark,
and Macau (Portugal). Most missing countries are located
in central Africa and the Middle East, or belong to the
former USSR. The arcs represent imports by one country from
another for the class of commodities designated as '
miscellaneous manufactures of metal', which represents high
technology products or heavy manufacture. The absolute value
of imports (in 1,000 US$) is used but imports with values less
than 1% of the country's total imports were omitted.

In addition, several attributes of the countries were coded: their continent, their structural world system position in 1994, their world system position in 1980 according to a previous analysis by Smith and White - see the reference below - and their Gross Domestic Product per capita in US$ in 1995 (Statistical Yearbook of the United Nations).

References

• D.A. Smith and D.R. White, 'Structure and Dynamics of the Global Economy - Network Analysis of International-Trade 1965-1980'. In: Social Forces, vol. 70 (1002), p. 857-893.
• United Nations , Statistical Papers. Commodity Trade Statistics (Series D Vol. XLIV, No. 1-34 (1994)).
• United Nations, Statistical Yearbook of the United Nations (Ed. 43, IVATION Datasystems Inc.) for additional economic and demographic data.
• W. de Nooy, A. Mrvar, & V. Batagelj, Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), Chapter 2.

History

• Original author: Wouter de Nooy (denooy@fhk.eur.nl). Data collected and translated into Pajek data files by W. de Nooy, 2001.