Distortions in Trade Statistics Revisited: Data and Empirical Issues

Sho Haneda¹, Akihiro Yogata², Naohiko Ijiri³

¹School of Social Welfare, Tokyo University of Social Welfare
²Graduate School of Economics, Nihon University
³College of Economics, Nihon University

Abstract

This paper aims to quantify distortions due to “data updating problem” in trade statistics that might cause biases in econometric analyses and policy evaluation. Using the UN Comtrade database over the period of 2005-2015, three main results are clarified. Firstly, the paper finds differences between old and updated data regarding the number of transactions as well as trade values. Secondly, the degree of distortions significantly differs among countries, even within OECD countries. Finally, estimation results indicate that the coefficient on independent variables can be changed because of the data updating problem in econometric analyses. As a policy implication, it should be noted that a replication of econometric results of previous studies requires exactly the same data. Thus, it may be required that UN Comtrade and other statistic offices keep old data in their website.

Keywords

• Trade Statistics Distortions Data Updating UN Comtrade HS Classification

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Cite this Article as Follows

Sho Haneda, Akihiro Yogata, Naohiko Ijiri. Distortions in Trade Statistics Revisited: Data and Empirical Issues. International Conference on Business, Finance and Economics (2018): 39 - 43. Print.