*** Concordance for Schedule B Exports, 1978-1988 ***



Description:



For 1978-1988, exports to the United States at a disaggregate level

were measured according to the Schedule B classification. The

Schedule B numbers differ very substantially from those used

before 1978, though they are still referred to by the same name.

The Schedule B numbers for 1972-1977 are similar to those used

for the SITC, Revision 1; the Schedule B numbers for 1978-1988

are similar to those used in the Tarriff Schedules of the United

States; and the Schedule E numbers for 1978-1988 are similar to

those used for the SITC, Revision 2.





The file CON78_88.ASC contains a complete list of the Schedule B numbers

for 1978-1988, along with various information about that commodity.



Record Layout:



The variables included are:



columns 1-7     -  Schedule B number

columns 9-15    -  Schedule E number

columns 17-24   -  1972 export-based SIC number

columns 26-33   -  1987 export-based SIC number

columns 35-39   -  Revision 2 SITC number

columns 41-43   -  Revision 3 SITC number

columns 45-49   -  BEA End use classification

columns 51-52   -  First year Schedule B number is used

columns 54-55   -  Last year Schedule B number is used

columns 57-59   -  Units of quantity

columns 61-88   -  Description of Schedule B commodity

column 90       -  End of record indicator (the number 1)



Missing and Imputed Values:



Some of the units of quantity are missing, and are indicated by blanks.



The first 8 commodities, with Schedule B numbers 0000001,...,0000008,

are for U.S. goods returned, and do not have any SIC or SITC codes,

as indicated by blanks.  This is also true for the ninth commodity,

number 0000009, which is for foreign merchandise returned to the U.S.



The Rev. 2 SITC numbers were missing for many of the commodities

with Schedule B numbers that were only used only in 1978.  These Rev. 2

SITC numbers have been imputed by using the first 5 digits of the

corresponding Schedule E number, or by using the description and SITC

number for closely matched commodities.



The 1987 export-based SIC numbers were revised for a number of commodities.

The revised codes all end with the digits "XXXX".



The 1987 export-based SIC numbers contain a number of cases where "Z" is

used to indicate that the classification is not known.  For example,

"23ZZZZZZ" indicates that the commodity belongs to the 2-digit

SIC category 23, but more precise information is not available.



Special Considerations:



It should be noted that the Schedule B numbers for any commodity change

over time, so the only way to keep track of a given commodity is by

its alphabetic description.  One way to identify all the Schedule B

numbers corresponding to a given commodity is to SORT the data by the

description.  However, the descriptions themselves  also change slightly

over time due to variations in spelling, etc.  This means that the set

of Schedule B numbers for a given description will not equal all the

Schedule B numbers for that item, since there may be slightly different

alphabetic descriptions for essentially the same item.



Related Files:



The Description has been used to identify the Schedule B commodities

in the files EXPYR_1.ASC, EXPYR_2.ASC, EXPYR_3.ASC, and EXPYR_4.ASC

for the years YR=78,79,...,88.  The SIC and SITC numbers, and units of

quantity in this concordance are identical to those in EXP*.ASC for 1978-88.



For years after 1988, exported commodities are identified by the

Harmonized System (HS) numbers.  A concordance of these numbers

is contained in CON89_94.ASC, as described in CON89_94.TXT.

A cross-reference between the Schedule B and HS numbers is contained

in HS_SCH_B.ASC, as described in HS_SCH_B.TXT.



Size:  CON78_88.ASC contains 5,494 records.



Source:



A concordance for 1978-1988 was obtained from:



U.S. International Trade Administration, COMPRO database

[machine-readable file].