Data Reference in Depth
Trade, Prices, Production, Consumption
IASSIST 2010
Amy West
University of Minnesota
Bang for Your Buck
• Sources covered have at least
o 2 decades of data and
• One or more of the following indicators
o bilateral commodity trade
o international prices
o international production
o international consumption
• Links in Del.icio.us
UN Comtrade
• Bilateral commodity trade
• all countries
• 1962-present
• includes all HS, all SITC and BEC classifications
• may include volume and value of trade for price calculation
• imperfect functionality in Google Chrome/Mac
• free to browse
• moderate fee to download
• My first choice because it's the biggest pot of bilateral trade
data to which the U of M has access
SourceOECD
• bilateral commodity trade
• OECD countries only as reporters
• 1960-present
• includes HS88, HS96, SITC Rev. 2 & 3
• may include volume and value of trade for price calculation
• doesn't work with Google Chrome/Mac
• high fee to access
• Second choice because it requires too many clicks to get to
the data, has fewer classifications and focuses on the 30
members of the OECD
UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics
• commodity prices and price indices
• 1960-present
• ONLY works in Windows / Internet Explorer
• free
• currently surveying users about Handbook design
• I use the Handbook because it may be the only source for a
given commodity. Provided you're in the right OS/browser, it
works nicely.
USGS Minerals Yearbook
• prices
• production
• either by country with reports from the mid-90s-present or by
mineral with statistics from 1900-present
• free
• If I need mineral prices, this is where I prefer to go because
it's free, easy to find and use, and backed up with print if the
site ever goes down.
USDA International Data
• for agricultural commodities,
o trade
o prices
o supply
o demand
o consumption
• 1960-present
• free
• no browser issues
• Recommended for breadth and depth of agriculture
statistics plus free to use.
FAOSTAT
• production 1961-present
• trade 1961-present
• prices 1966-present
• free to use in its entirety as of 6/30/10
• I haven't made use of FAOSTAT as much in the past
because the U of M was unable to work out a subscription
for downloads. Now that this will no longer be an issue, I
expect I will use it quite a bit more. It's got some nice
features for casual and in-depth statistics needs.
LexisNexis Statistical Insight
• prices
• production
• consumption
• 1801-present
• primarily indexes publications; some MS Excel tables
included
• high fee to access
• I use LNSI to identify citations to trade association statistics
that address commodities not otherwise disaggregated in
official sources or that address indicators not provided in
official sources.
Thank You For Your Time
Amy West
Data Services Librarian
University of Minnesota
• westx045@umn.edu
• Google Mail, IM, Docs, Reader: ae.west
• http://www2.lib.umn.edu/data
• http://delicious.com/umdatalib
• http://twitter.com/amyewest
Photo Courtesy Barkertrax: http://www.flickr.com/photos/barkertrax/3807092319/