World Trade Analyzer
The World Trade Analyzer (WTA) is a trade database that allows you to access data for 600 commodity groups for 192 countries for up to 18 years (1985-2002). It is created from data reported by member countries to the United Nations Statistical Office, later compiled by Statistics Canada.
Location: Available in Data Services cluster of computers on the first floor of Perkins Library in the Reference Department.
Data Organization: Data is arranged using the Standard International Trade Classification (SITC), Revision 2, at up to 4-digit level of detail. You are strongly urged to determine a code number for your commodity before beginning to collect the data. See our information on choosing a commodity and on coding systems. You can browse the books cited or, from the initial "Top Screen" of WTA, you can click the "Commodity Information" button and browse the SITC hierarchy. You can also toggle over to this commodity outline from the Table view at any time by clicking "Commodity" at the top of the window.
Help Guides: Besides this web page (detailed example given below), you can look at the following short Quick-Start help guides in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, which use examples to show how to specify your data and get output.
- Specifying Data (important)
- Sorting Specific Data (important)
- Saving Data Specifications (probably not necessary)
- Exporting WTA Data to Other Applications (important)
- Graphing (you can also export data from the Table View and create graphs from a spreadsheet program)
There is also a more comprehensive manual in Adobe Acrobat format.
Example
Determine the top 15 exporters of a commodity in 1998. Manipulate the display, then modify your criteria.
Before beginning, determine the SITC rev. 2 code for a commodity as discussed above under "Organization." We will use 791, for railroad equipment.
To Open:
From the desktop, open the icon that says "CD Network" or "CD Tower" if the menu is not already open. Open the World Trade Analyzer folder and then the WTA program.
Top Screen (opening menu)
At the opening menu, click the "Table View" button to build a spreadsheet of data or click on "Commodity Information" to browse SITC codes. From the Commodity window, you can click "Table" at the top to toggle over to the Table View. The program does not transfer an SITC code from the Commodity window to the Table window; the Commodity Information is just there for reference purposes.
Table View
Ignore the spreadsheet that comes up when you open the program. This will just reflect the latest WTA specifications used on the particular computer that you're using. (If you find it distracting, you can click "Reset" at the top to clear the old search.) Click the Selector Button in the upper left corner to get the Selector dialog box. The Selector is the key to specifying criteria for your data.
Selector dialog box
How it works: This is where you specify values for each of the five dimensions (Measure, Year, SITC, Exporter, Importer). The "selection values" section in the middle of the Selector dialog box shows what values are currently selected. You highlight a dimension on the left, then click on various icons at the top of the dialog box to change that dimension's values to what you want.
The following examples will illustrate how to create various spreadsheets in WTA.
Using the Selector
Measure | Year | SITC | Importer | Exporter
Select Measure
- Highlight "Measure" in the Selector dialog box (above).
- Click the "List" button at the top of the Selector dialog box.
- In the "List" dialog box (below), highlight "Value Change," "Value Percent Change," and "World Import Share" in the box on the right ("Selected Measures") and click the "Remove" button in the middle. The highlighted measures will disappear. You can play around highlighting values in the boxes and clicking the buttons in the middle until you get the values you want in the right-hand "Selected Measures" box.
Important: Note the definitions below, because the terminology isn't clear.
"World Export Share": Percent of the given importer's total imports coming from the given exporter. Example.
"World Import Share": Percent of the given exporter's total exports going to the given importer.
"Value Change": Calculates change to the indicated year from the immediately preceding year (which isn't necessarily the previously listed, or visible, year).
- Click the "OK" button in the upper right to return to the Selector dialog, now showing the measure(s) you chose in its middle Selection Values box.
Select Year
- Highlight "Year" in the Selector dialog box.
- Click the "List" button at the top.
- In the List dialog box (below), highlight "1998" in the box on the right ("Selected Years") and click the "Keep" button in the middle. Only "1998" will remain in the right-had box.
- Click the "OK" button to return to the Selector dialog.
Select SITC
- Highlight "SITC" in the Selector dialog box.
- Click the "Match" button at the top. (This can be done about as easily using the List dialog, using the + and - symbols to manipulate the hierarchy of commodities, and using the Remove and Keep buttons as described above.)
- In the Match dialog box (below), set "SITCs that" to start with, "the character(s)" to 791, leave "in hierarchy" at Standard, and set "at level(s)" to 3-digit. A verbal summarization of what you've selected is at the bottom.
- If more than one value had matched your criteria, you can use selection tools to narrow it down, but in this case only one value matched our criteria, so click the "OK" button to return to the Selector dialog.
Select Importer
- Highlight "Importer" in the Selector dialog box.
- Click the "List" button at the top.
- In the List dialog box, highlight "Total Market" in the box on the right ("Selected Years") and click the "Keep" button in the middle. Only "Total Market" will remain in the right-hand box.
- Click the - (minus symbol) next to Africa in the box on the left. Then, under North America, highlight USA and click the "Add" button.
- Click the "OK" button to return to the Selector dialog.
Select Exporter
- Highlight "Exporter" in the Selector dialog box.
- Click the "TopBot" button at the top.
Important Note: Before using this routine, it's important to first make your choices for each of the other dimensions. It will search for the top values in this dimension based on the upper-most selected values in the other dimensions, in this case the top exporters to the Total Market (as Importer), for 1998 (for year), for SITC 791, and based on Value (as Measure). - In the Top/Bottom dialog box (below), change "the top" to 15 and change "at level(s)" to Country (since we want to see the top 15 countries). At the bottom, it shows a summary of what you selected.
- Click the "OK" button to return to the Selector dialog. There will be a pause because the program is searching the database to find the countries that meet your selection criteria.
Results
Finally, click "OK" in the Selector dialog to return to the Table View. The display (below), however, will need some manipulation for the data to be meaningful.
Manipulation of the Display
The key to the display is moving the 5 dimensions among the 3 segments at the top denoted by the purple corner icon (out-of-the-way dimensions), the blue row labels icon, and the green column headings icon. You can use Windows drag-and-drop techniques for this.
Note: It's best to get dimensions with many values (a string of years or a list of countries) into the blue row or green column sections, and reserve the purple section for single-value dimensions or dimensions for which you only need to see one value at a time.
Below shows the results of dragging Exporter to the blue row section and dragging Year and SITC to the purple section. In the purple section, if a dimension has more than two values, use the drop-down arrow to choose which to display.
Important Definitions: For a given cell in a data table (see above), just substitute the name of the importing market for "given importer" in the definitions below (the World, in the above example) and the name of the exporting market for "given exporter" (each country listed along the left, in the above example).
"World Export Share": Percent of the given importer's total imports coming from the given exporter.
"World Import Share": Percent of the given exporter's total exports going to the given importer.
"Value Change": Calculates change to the indicated year from the immediately preceding year (which isn't necessarily the previously listed, or visible, year).
Time Series for a Specific Country
Use the Selector dialog (you can also double-click on a dimension tile in the purple, blue, or green sections) to select all years (best to use the "List" option), drag Exporter to purple and Year to the blue column section. Use the drop down arrow to choose Canada as Exporter and click OK back to the Table View. See result below.
Canada's Trade Partners
First, open the Selector dialog and choose only 1998 for the year. This is so we can rank importers of Canadian railroad equipment according to trade in the most recent year for which we have data. [You're supposed to be able to select which year you want the ranking to reflect from within the Select Top/Bottom dialog, but this feature doesn't work, at least over the network.]
Next select Importers using the TopBot dialog (below). Change "the top" to 10 and "at level(s)" to Country. Check the summary at the bottom.
Finally, change years selected again using the list dialog (below). Highlight and use the buttons as needed to choose every fifth year from 1998 and going back.
The program does not recalculate the ranking of trade partners for the earlier date; it continues to use the same set of countries that it found when you used the Top/Bottom dialog with 1998 chosen, until you were to re-select Importers.
In the resulting Table View, drag Importer to the blue row section, Year to the green column section, and Measure to the purple section.
Printing
Printing is awkward in WTA. It is recommended that you export your data to a spreadsheet, then use the capabilities of a spreadsheet program to analyze the data, produce graphs, etc.
- If you need to print a small spreadsheet, use the "Print" menu at the top of the Table View to bring up the Print dialog (right).
- Use the Page drop-down menu to choose DV1 (for Data View 1) in order to print what's showing in your table view.
- Click the View radio button to print the entire spreadsheet (Table 1). Otherwise, you'll get just the part that shows in the window, cutting off some columns or rows.
- Selecting the "Displayed Page of Data" radio button (default) will print the 2-dimensional spreadsheet that is currently visible. Selecting the "All Pages of Data" radio button will print "hidden" sheets, that is, sheets with data representing all the values of the dimensions in the purple section, if any of these have more than one value.
For example, in the final Table View example, above, you would get two printouts ... one for Measure=Value and one for Measure=World Export Share. - Click the Layout... button to select landscape format and other layout options (see below).
If the data on the screen is wider than what will fit on a normal sheet of paper, choose the Landscape orientation from the "Layout" dialog (left).
You should leave "Render Style" at Report or else the printout will include all the marginalia in the window around the actual spreadsheet data (menu headings, dimension tiles, etc.).
Exporting Data
Use the Export Menu at the top of the Table View to export the data on the current view. Any of the three File Formats open in most spreadsheet programs. You can label a header and footer and name your file.
You should bring a floppy diskette and save your file to the a: drive (below).
Unless otherwise specified on this page, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Perkins Circulation Desk: 919-660-5870