Worldwide Tariff Database (WTD)

A Worldwide Tariff Database (WTD) over 1990-2010 has been prepared for the analysis in the paper: 

Lorenzo Caliendo, Robert C. Feenstra, John Romalis and Alan M. Taylor “Tariff Reductions, Heterogeneous Firms, and Welfare: Theory and Evidence for 1990-2010,” 2023, International Monetary Fund Economic Review, forthcoming. 

The tariff database described here should be referenced to this paper. Click here to take you directly to the data.

Introduction

An earlier version of the database, WTD version 0 (WTD0) was used for our working paper Caliendo, Feenstra, Romalis and (2020), but it is not available in its original form. WTD version 1 (WTD1) makes extensive checks and improvements to WTD0, and in this documentation we provide the documentation for WTD1. 

WTD1 consists of annual files containing MFN and preferential tariff data by importing country and for all exporting countries and SITC goods when there is positive trade in that year. During the time period covered by the data, 1990-2010, a number of countries in eastern Europe changed their composition, so that by 1993: Czechoslovakia split into two countries (the Czech Republic and Slovakia); the USSR split into 15 countries (see the list below); and Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split into 5 and later 6 countries (see the list below). The quantitative model in the main text is based on the Eora multi-region input-output table, and Eora includes the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the 15 countries of former USSR, and the 6 countries of former Yugoslavia from 1990 onwards. For consistency with Eora, we have omitted Czechoslovakia, the USSR and Yugoslavia from the database, and in their place we have imputed the tariffs of the future countries formed from them: specific details on how that is achieved are provided below.

While the Eora database has 190 countries, in the application of the WTD1 database to Eora, we focus on 178 of these countries plus the rest of the world: the omitted countries were judged to have unreliable input-output tables in Eora, or overlapped with other included regions in Eora, or we were lacking trade data. Nevertheless, the tariffs for these omitted countries are included within the WTD1 database, but these countries are omitted from the quantitative analysis. 

Countries of the former USSR (15 countries, with ISO codes): Armenia (ARM), Azerbaijan (AZE), Belarus (BLR), Estonia (EST), Georgia (GEO), Kazakhstan (KAZ), Kyrgyzstan (KGZ), Latvia (LVA), Lithuania (LTU), Moldova (MDA), Russia (RUS), Tajikistan (TJK), Turkmenistan (TKM), Ukraine (UKR), Uzbekistan (UZB)

Countries of the former Yugoslavia (6 countries with ISO codes, and one combined ISO code): Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH), Croatia (HRV), Montenegro (MNE), North Macedonia (MKD), Serbia (SRB), Slovenia (SVN), and a combined ISO code for Serbia and Montenegro (SCG) 

WTD1Dataset: MFN and preferential tariff data by importing country, for each exporting country and SITC good with positive trade

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For each year, WTD1 contains the MFN and preferential tariff for each importing country, exporting country and SITC good with a positive trade value based on the COMTRADE database of the United Nations. The resulting dataset has observations for which there is positive trade value between the countries in that SITC good and year. We refer to this dataset as the “base” version. The MFN and preferential tariff data for all exporters and SITC codes with positive trade is contained in the annual STATA files: tariffYEAR _base_v1.dta for YEAR=1990, 1991, ..., 2010. 

Variables:

year – 4-digit number indicating the year
iiso – 3-digit string giving the importing country ISO code 
eiso – 3-digit string giving the exporting country ISO code 
iwits – WITS numeric code for the importing country 
ewits – WITS numeric code for the exporting country 
importer – string variable giving the importer country name 
exporter – string variable giving the exporter country name
sitc4 – Standard International Trade 4-digit (SITC) classification, rev. 2 
t1 – Most favored nation (MFN) ad valorem tariff, in percent
t1_pref – Preferential ad valorem tariff, in percent 
t1_nonmfn – a non-MFN ad valorem tariff, in percent 
version – an indicator variable which takes the value of 0 if the MFN and preferential tariffs are taken from version 0 of the database (WTD0), and 1 otherwise

Description:

Listed in these files is the importer country code (iiso), exporter country code (eiso), alternative country codes from the UN or WITS (icode and ewits), country names (importer and exporter), SITC rev. 2, 4-digit code (sitc4), along with the most-favored nation (MFN) tariff t1, the preferential tariff between the countries, t1_pref , and – for a very small number of observations – a non-MFN tariff, t1_nonm f n. The main importers for which a non-MFN tariff is recorded are the United States and Japan, and in these cases, it is only for a small number of exporting countries: in the United States, for example, these are mostly Communist countries for which “column 2” tariffs are used rather than the MFN tariff. Thus, in most cases the non-MFN tariff t1_nonmfn is missing. In the remainder of this description we explain the SITC 4-digit code (sitc4) and the tariffs, and also the WTD version from which the tariff is drawn. 

i) SITC codes and Version: 

The WTD0 database includes 818 4-digit SITC codes, some of which were not true SITC sub- groups, but the tariff data in WTD1 uses 784 codes that omit most 4-digit codes that were not SITC subgroups. The tariff dataset in WTD1 includes some SITC codes ending in 0 that are not true SITC subgroups, however, in which case the tariffs are obtained from version 0 of the data, WTD0. In addition, there are a few importing countries whose tariffs are drawn from version 0 of the data. In both cases, that is indicated by the indicator variable version=0; otherwise, version=1. 

ii) MFN tariffs:

The most-favored nation (MFN) tariff t1 reported in this dataset is drawn from a variety of sources described in the main text. As mentioned at the outset of this documentation, for certain eastern European countries especially during 1990-1993, we created tariffs before these countries existed as separate entities. For example, for Russia during 1990-1992 we use the tariffs from the published 1993 tariff schedule. Data Appendix Table 1 gives details of which tariff schedule was used to infer tariffs for each country and year. Russia appears there in 1990-1992 as using the published 1993 schedule for Russia, and these tariffs are reported for all exporters and SITC goods that the USSR imported from in each year 1990-1993. For the other 14 countries of the former USSR, we use the 1993 tariffs of Russia during 1990-1993, and these tariffs are reported for all exporters and SITC goods that these countries imported from in 1994. 

Several other new countries of eastern Europe are also treated in a similar way until they publish their own tariff schedules. Specifically, for the Czech Republic and Slovakia (which were formed from Czechoslovakia on January 1, 1993), their tariffs in 1990-1995 are taken from the 1992 Czechoslovakia tariff schedule, and these tariffs are reported for those exporters and SITC goods that Czechoslovakia imported in 1993. For Serbia during 1990-2000 we use the tariffs from its published 2001 tariff schedule. For the other countries from the former Yugoslavia, see Data Appendix Table 1 for details of which tariff schedule was used to infer tariffs for each country and year. 

iii) Preferential and non-MFN tariffs: 

In the Data Appendix Table 2, we list all the preferential trade agreements that are incorporated into the database. For the 15 former USSR countries that are created as distinct entities during 1990-1993, the preferential tariffs between them are set at zero until each country gains independence and publishes a tariff schedule, when tariffs were sometimes applied against the other countries. Similarly, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which are treated as having zero tariffs against each other when they are part of Czechoslovakia during 1990-1992, and the countries of the former Yugoslavia are treated similarly prior to their independence. 

Two adjustments have been made to the preferential tariff between the countries. First, we set t1_pref equal to t1 in cases where there is no preferential agreements between the countries. Second, for the very small number of observations where t1_nonmfn is reported (which is at least as large as t1) , then we set t1_pref equal to t1_nonmfn . In this way, a value for t1_pref is reported for every observation in the dataset, and t1_pref ≤ t1 for nearly all observations, with the exception of those cases where there is a non-MFN tariff reported, in which case as a matter of convention we choose to set t1_pref = t1_nonmfn ≥ t1. By this convention, t1_pref always reflects the operative tariff between countries.