Indices of Trade Partner Concentration for 183 Countries

Abstract

Trade partner concentration can be used to operationalize important concepts like dependency and globalization, but it can be very time-consuming to calculate concentration indices. In research for which export, import, or total trade partner concentration would be useful as one among many variables but is not the primary variable of interest, potential users of concentration indices are likely to be deterred by the high level of commitment required to process the raw data. In addition, the expense of acquiring the raw data can be a deterrent to some scholars. To address these problems and broaden access to data we report seven indices of export, import, and trade partner concentration for all 183 countries for which data are readily available for the years 1980-2008. The raw data underlying the indices are drawn from the International Monetary Fund's Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) database. Details of data preparation and index construction are provided and basic characteristics of the resulting concentration indices described. The indices presented here are likely to find use in regression-based and time-trend studies of the structure and political economy of the contemporary world-system.