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N° 2008-10 |
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| June 2008 |
| International Trade Price Indices |
Guillaume Gaulier
Julien Martin
Isabelle Méjean
Soledad Zignago |
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| Export and import price indices are useful instruments in international economics. We document
here TradePrices, our database of aggregated and sectoral trade price indices for
all countries, computed using unit values given by BACI, the CEPII’s database of international
trade at the product-level covering the period 1995-2004. Its rich country dimension
allow an international comparison of prices evolutions. We compute “common” Laspeyres
and Paasche indices but also “superlative” Fisher and Tornqvist indices, in both chained and
fixed-base forms (chained Laspeyres and Paasche are also provided in their geometric form).
In a first part, we discuss the characteristics of these different aggregation methods. In particular,
we highlight the links between statistical methods and economical assumptions about
implicit elasticity of substitution between goods. In a second step we describe the data. An
exhaustive sensitivity analysis is done in order to determine the appropriate way to deal with
technical difficulties, such as the treatment of measurement errors in bilateral unit values.
Finally, this paper provides some stylized facts illustrating the necessity to provide a trade
price database allowing international comparison and the usefulness of both aggregated and
sectoral trade price indices to study international economics. TradeP rices database and
SAS programs are freely available online, offering to users the possibility to choose the most
accurate index for each particular purpose. |
Non-technical summary |
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Résumé
non-technique
en français |
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| Full text |
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| International trade; price indices |
Keywords |
| F12; F15 |
JEL classification |
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