These series, and all data by polity, are now freely available in the Federico-Tena World Trade Historical Database.
Figure 1 The Federico-Tena World Trade Historical Database
For each polity (a total of 149) we provide a separate Excel file, which can be easily retrieved from the website by clicking the corresponding button in the Google map (see Figure 2). It is thus possible to study the trade performance of a single polity or of any group of polities of interest.
Figure 2 Image of the Web Map
The set includes eight series, for exports and imports at current and constant (1913 dollars) prices at current and constant borders, for a total of 13,075 yearly data for imports and 14,399 for exports and 109,896 observations. We describe in detail the methods and sources of our estimates and assess their reliability in Federico and Tena-Junguito (2016). This paper refers to our main estimate, which was completed in 2014. Since then, we have revised some series to correct errors and to take into account new research made available to us in the meanwhile (information on these changes can be found here). We intend to periodically update the database to correct mistakes and incorporate the results of future research on trade. The next revision is scheduled for October 2020 and we would be grateful for any suggestions.
The estimation of polity series has required the collection of a number of additional series, which we also publish on the website. In particular, we publish series of ‘international’ prices for 190 products, as proxied by prices in London or, for manufactures, unit prices of British exports, from 1850 to 1938; of 48 freights rates by product/route from 1800 to 1838; and of exchange rates for diverse years from 1800 to 1938, for 132 countries.
Although our main interest is in aggregate trade, we have collected a substantial amount of information about the composition of trade from a number of different sources. Unfortunately, few recent works group products according to modern categories, while contemporary sources use widely different criteria which prevent any analysis of composition beyond the simple distinction between primary products and manufactures. We estimated series of the share of primary products on imports and exports for a growing number of polities, from 25 in 1820, to 110 after 1850. We use these data to estimate a series of world share of primary products from 1820 to 1938, by linking trade-weighted averages for three different time-invariant samples, starting in 1820 (‘1820 sample’, with 23 polities), 1830 (‘1830 sample’, 32 polities) and 1850 (‘full sample’, with 90-110 polities).
Figure 3 Share of primary products on exports, baseline series, 1820–1938
Source: ‘product composition’ and text.
The share of primary products (Figure 3) has been drifting downwards, from about 65% in the 1820s to slightly above 55% on the eve of WWI, with an acceleration of the trend around 1860. This decline continued, albeit very slowly, in the 1920s, while the share rebounded after 1929 back to the level of the early 1910s. As Figure 4 shows, the aggregate share of primary products on exports declined for both rich countries and the rest of the world.
Figure 4 Share of primary products for export and imports in rich and poor countries
Source: ‘product composition’ and text.
Before 1913, the trend by polity was mixed, but the worldwide share declined because of the change in the specialisation of the US. Primary products accounted for four-fifths of American exports before the Civil War and for a third on the eve of WWI and in the interwar years. If the share of primary products on US exports had remained constant since 1850, in 1913 the overall one would have been 62.7% rather than 62.3% – with an increase of 0.45 percentage points instead of the actual decline by 6.3 points. The decline in the share on exports by polity continued in most countries until 1938 – the increase in the worldwide share reflects the growing share of world exports of primary producing polities.
Figure 4 highlights another significant divergence from the conventional wisdom. World trade during the first globalisation was not a simple vertical exchange of primary products from the periphery with manufactures from the core countries. As expected, primary products accounted for most exports of poor countries (on average 86.1% from 1850 to 1938) and for most imports of rich countries (73.6%), but they accounted for about a third of exports from rich countries (38.0%) and for slightly less than half of imports of poor countries (45.5%).
Of course, an analysis based only on the aggregate share of primary products barely scratches the surface of the issue. Unfortunately, estimating the changes in composition of world trade, even at the simplest one-digit level, would need a massive research effort. While we await this, our database and the parallel database on aggregate bilateral trade (RICARDO) offer scholars a very valuable resource for historical quantitative analyses of trade – historical comparisons might be useful for understanding current and future trade trends.
ReferencesArkolakis, C, A Costinot and A Rodriguez-Clare (2012), “New trade models, same old gains?” American Economic Review 102: 94–130.
Eichengreen, B and K O’Rourke (2012), “A tale of two depressions redux”, VoxEU.org, 6 March.
Federico, G and A Tena-Junguito(2016), “World trade, 1800-1938: A new dataset“, EHES, Working papers in economic history 93.
Federico, G and A Tena-Junguito(2016a), “World trade, 1800-2015”, VoxEU.org, 7 February.
Federico, G and A Tena-Junguito(2016b), “The globalisation in the long run: Gains from trade and openness 1800-2014”, VoxEU.org, 18 April.
Federico, G and A Tena-Junguito (2017a), “Lewis revisited: Tropical polities competing on the world market 1830-1938”, Economic History Review 70: 1244–1267.
Federico, G and A Tena-Junguito (2017b), “A tale of two globalizations: Gains from trade and openness 1800–2010”, Review of World Economics 153: 601–626.
Federico, G and A Tena-Junguito (2018), "American divergence: Lost decades and Emancipation collapse in Latin American and the Caribbean 1820-1870“, European Review of Economic History 22: 185–209.