***Export Prices (SIC basis)****



Description:



Most of the data included on this CD-ROM does not include export prices.

In some files, there is an export value and an export quantity, which

can be used to construct a unit-value (=value/quantity).  But this

unit-value will generally combine products that are somewhat heterogeneous,

so that it cannot be treated as the price of a single product.  The only

source for actual prices of U.S. exports and imports is the Division of

International Prices, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  That office collects

price by repeat interviewing OF U.S. firms that export or import goods.

These prices are then aggregated into SIC or SITC categories, and these

indexes are reported in the files SICPRICE.ASC and SITPRICE.ASC, respectively.



The file SICPRICE.ASC  contain export price indexes for the U.S. at the

3-digit 1972-basis SIC level (annual and quarterly) over 1980-1992, though

data for some industries is over a shorter period.  Selected 4-digit

industries are also included.  More recent data at the SIC level is not

available.  The record layout for the file is as follows:



columns 1-4     -       SIC code (2, 3, or 4 digits)

columns 6-7     -       Year

columns 9-11    -       Quarter, preceded by Q (Q01, Q02, etc.)

columns 13-17   -       Price index



Special Values:



The SIC code 2A3M is the aggregate for SIC 2 and 3, which is then

the total for all manufacturing.  It is reported on lines 2909-2950

of the file.



Size:  SICPRICE.ASC has 5,944 records.



Related Files:



Since the 1972-basis SIC is used for the export price indexes, they

could be used with the export values in SIC58_92.ASC, which are also

on a 1972-basis SIC, but at the 4-digit level.  Thus, the export values

would have to be aggregated to a 3-digit level to be fully comparable

to the export prices.



Source:



These data and the interview process are described in William Alterman,

"Price Trends in U.S. Trade: New Data, New Insights," in Peter Hooper and

J. David Richardson, eds. INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC TRANSACTIONS, Chicago:

Univ. of Chicago Press and NBER, 1991, pp. 109-139.



The export price indexes are published by the Division of International

Prices, Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The data in this file was

downloaded by anonymous FTP from the site stats.bls.gov.