International Trade Price Indices (original) (raw)

A Cross-Country Analysis of Export Prices in Oecd Countries

Economic Papers: A journal of applied economics and policy, 2006

As is the case with most small open economies, changes in Australia's export prices are an important source of national macroeconomic disturbance largely out of its control given its choice of export bundle. This paper distinguishes the extent to which export price variation consists of global versus country-specific changes for the set of 14 OECD countries investigated. We find that sharp changes in global export prices are evidently becoming more important for many of the countries in the OECD sample over the last 25 years as compared with the previous 25 year period. The paper also finds that, by a number of different measures, whilst Australia's export price growth has apparently become more highly associated with World export prices in recent years, it nonetheless continues to have one of the more volatile set of export prices among OECD countries.

Transfer Prices and Import and Export Price Indexes: Theory and Practice

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Currently over one-third of U.S. trade in goods takes place between related parties. The valuation of these goods has been subject to much controversy and criticism over the years, as companies have been accused of over or under valuing these goods in order to minimize business taxes and/or import duties. A myriad of rules and regulations developed (in the case of the United States) by both the Internal Revenue Service as well as the Customs Service deal with these valuations. For the purpose of calculating the 2 export and import price indexes, however, the question we attempt to answer is, "Conceptually, what is the ideal import/export price the Bureau of Labor Statistics should be collecting in those instances where a transaction is between related parties." We demonstrate that the ideal price for incorporation into these price indexes may be very difficult to calculate, and that the selection of an alternative arms length transaction may be a more fruitful approach.

Terms of Trade Indices in the Presence of Re-Export Trade

Economic Record, 1985

Glasgow G4 OLN This paper shows how the index of the commodity t e r m of trade as ordinarily construcied should be adjusted to take account of re-exports in the broad sense of the use of intermediate inputs in export activities which had been imported. The neglect of this adjustment produces indices which generally overstate the movement of the terms of trade. An empiricalstudy of Singapore suggests that the bias may be substantial. Most countries define indices of the prices and quantities of traded commodities over the set of traded commodities excluding all 're-export' commodities (that is, commodities which are reexported in substantially the same form after grading, storing, repacking or minor processing). Consequently their indices of the terms of trade also exclude the prices of entrepot commodities. This

New Phenomena in the Price Movement of Manufactured Goods in Contemporary International Trade

EUROPEAN RESEARCH STUDIES JOURNAL

The research on export price trends was conducted based on the export price indices of processed goods and indices of manufacture to manufacture terms of trade. Then, the analysis of changes in the structure of exports of processed goods by the degree of processing of the countries and groups of countries studied was made. Findings: The results indicate the existence of relatively high dynamics of export prices of processed goods of China and India, i.e., developing countries, so far competing with low prices in exports. This phenomenon occurred under the conditions of an apparent increase in the share of high-skill and technology-intensive manufactures in the total exports of these countries in the last quarter of a century, as shown in the study. Practical Implications: The results of this research have important implications for economic policy-making in developing countries. They confirm that goods characteristics (export structure) are still an important determinant of export prices. Originality/Value: The present study demonstrates new phenomena in the price movement of manufactured goods in international trade that deviate from previous trends analyzed and reported in the literature. The findings contribute to the ongoing discussion on the increasing technological sophistication of developing countries' exports improving their terms of trade.

International Relative Price Levels: A Look Under the Hood

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012

This paper examines the structure of international relative price levels using purchasing power parities (PPP) at the product-level from the 2005 World Bank's International Comparison Program (ICP). Our examination is motivated by questions arising from two applications using economy-wide PPPs: the measurement of real effective exchange rates (REERs) and the correlation between prices and development. Specifically, how would our view on competitiveness be affected if one were to use PPP measures that exclude non-tradable categories? Is it the case that an increase in per-capita income raises the prices of non-tradable categories? These questions are not new. What is new here is the use of relative price levels (as opposed to indexes) at the product level for 144 countries that differ greatly in their level of development.

roiw_387 32..58 STOCHASTIC APPROACH TO INDEX NUMBERS FOR MULTILATERAL PRICE COMPARISONS AND THEIR STANDARD ERRORS

2015

The main objective of the paper is to demonstrate that a number of widely used multilateral index numbers for international comparisons of purchasing power parities (PPPs) and real incomes can be derived using the stochastic approach. The paper shows that price index numbers from commonly used methods like the Iklé, the Rao-weighted, and an additive multilateral system are all estimators of the parameters of the country–product–dummy (CPD) model. The advantage of the stochastic approach is that we can derive standard errors for the estimates of the purchasing power parities (PPPs). The PPPs and the parameters of the stochastic model are estimated using a weighted maximum likelihood procedure under different stochastic specifications for the disturbance term. Estimates of PPPs and their standard errors for OECD countries using the proposed methods are presented. The paper also outlines a method of moments approach to the estimation of PPPs under the stochastic approach. The paper sho...