The Trade Outcomes Indicators is a module in WITS that helps you review the country-level performance of exports along various dimensions, which together give a comprehensive picture of trade competitiveness. The trade outcomes tool follows the analytical framework developed in the World Bank's Trade Competitiveness Diagnostic toolkit. It provides indicators along four different dimensions of trade performance: (i) the composition, orientation, and growth of exports and imports, (ii) the degree of export diversification across products and markets, (iii) the level of sophistication of a country's main exports, and (iv) the survival rate of its export relationships. This framework allows the analyst to evaluate the dynamics of the country's exports along different margins of trade and to benchmark specific countries’ position with respect to their peers. The toolkit can be used to assess the competitiveness of a country's overall basket of products as well as specific traded sectors. It facilitates the identification of the primary constraints to improved trade competitiveness and the policy responses to overcome these constraints.
The various indicators that can be calculated using this module are as under
- Section 1 - Orientation and Growth
- Exports, Imports, and Trade Balance
- Openness to Trade
- Sectoral Composition, Comparative Advantage, and Growth
- Primary Products, Shares, and Growth
- Market Composition and Growth
- Growth in Value versus Volume
- Trade Intensity Index
- Trade Complementarity Index
- Section 2 - Export Diversification
- Number of Products and Markets
- Herfindahl-Hirschman Product Concentration Index
- Herfindahl-Hirschman Market Concentration Index
- Growth Orientation of Products
- Growth Orientation of Markets
- Value Reach of Exports
- Index of Export Market Penetration
- Section 3 - Export Sophistication
- Technological Classification of Exports
- Sophistication of Exports (EXPY)
- Export Portfolio and Factor Endowments
- Section 4 - Survival of Export Relationships
The principal data source is the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN-COMTRADE), which reports detailed bilateral export and import data. The database is regularly updated and includes information for over 170 countries, some of which have been reporting these types of statistics to the United Nations since 1962. The data are recorded according to various internationally recognized trade classifications. This database is available through the World Integrated Trade Solutions (WITS) platform, a gateway to trade statistics as well as a trade analytical tool. In addition to UN-COMTRADE data, the online trade outcomes tool makes use of other publicly available datasets, such as the World Bank's World Development Indicators and the UN Revealed Factor Intensity Indices.
The module provides a flexible array of options. These options include the selection of countries of interest, product classifications, the usage of reported or mirrored data, and the years of the analysis. In addition, users can also create ad-hoc country and product groups or-when relevant-investigate specific trading partners. It is also possible to generate only a subset of indicators and get comparative data on peer countries. The user's guideline document provides specific details for these options. As an alternative to the indicator by indicator analysis, the software offers a built-in set of choices that the user can automatically employ to generate the set of indicators by section for the country and the year of choice. The output is data for each indicator along with a companion visualization, which can be easily exported in a number of formats.
The "Trade Outcomes Indicator" module can be accessed under the "Advanced Query" menu once you Login to WITS. If you do not have a user account, please register using the Registration page.