*** Concordance for TSUSA Imports, 1972-1988 ***



Description:



For years up until 1988, imports to the United States at a disaggregate

level were measured according to the Tariff Schedule of the United States

Annotated (TSUSA) classification.  

 

The file CON72_88.ASC contains a complete list of the TSUSA numbers

for 1972-1988, along with various information about that commodity.



Record Layout:



The variables included are:



columns 1-7       	-  TSUSA number

columns 9-16      	-  1972 SIC number

columns 18-25     	-  1987 SIC number

columns 27-31     	-  Revision 2 SITC number (5-digit)

columns 33-35		-  Revision 3 SITC number (3-digit)

columns 37-38     	-  First year TSUSA number is used

columns 40-41     	-  Last year TSUSA number is used

columns 43-45     	-  Units of quantity (see UNIT7288.TXT)

columns 47-110		-  Description of TSUSA commodity

column 112		-  End of record indicator (the number 1)



		

Missing and Imputed Values: 



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



Some of the 1972 SIC numbers have been revised from the original

source, to obtain a better match with the commodity description.

For example, various articles of women's, children's and infant's

clothing were classified in 1972 SIC numbers with the first four digits 

2321, which refers to "men's and boy's shirts."  The 1972 SIC number for 

these items was changed to 2361ZZZZ, which refers to "girl's, children's

and infant's clothing."  In addition, the category 3715ZZZZ referring

to "truck trailers" was created.



The SITC Rev. 2 codes have been imputed for TSUSA categories used

during 1972-1977 by aplying information on:  (a) the SITC Rev. 2 codes 

used for a like-named TSUSA commodity in later years; or (b)  the SITC 

Rev. 1 code used for that commodity, and the concordance SITCR1_2.ASC

between Rev. 1 and Rev. 2.  In a very small number of cases, the Rev. 2 

SITC number is missing, as indicated by a blank field.



The 1987 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 TSUSA 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 TSUSA

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 TSUSA numbers for a given description will not equal all the TSUSA 

numbers for that item, since there may be slightly different alphabetic 

descriptions for essentially the same item.



Some attempt has been made to resolve this issue by using consistent

alphabetic description for commodities over various years, but cases 

of slight changes in spelling still remain.



Related Files:



The Description has been used to identify the TSUSA commodities 

in the files IMPYR_1.ASC, IMPYR_2.ASC, and IMPYR_3.ASC, for the years 

YR=72,73,...,88, and does not have any missing values.  The SIC and

SITC Rev. 2 numbers, and units of quantity in this concordance are 

identical to those in IMP*.ASC for 1972-88.  



The SITC Rev. 3 numbers used in CON72_88.ASC are obtained from the 

SITC Rev. 2 to Rev. 3 concordance reported in SITCR2_3.ASC.



For years after 1988, imported commodities are identified by the

Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) numbers.  A concordance of these

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

A cross-reference between the TSUSA and HTS numbers is contained

in HS_TSUSA.ASC, as described in HS_TSUSA.TXT.



Size:  CON72_88.ASC contains 26,665 records.



Source:  



A concordance for 1978-1988 was obtained from:



U.S. International Trade Adminstration, COMPRO database 

[machine-readable file].



In order to extend this back to 1972, the TSUSA numbers and commodity

descriptions for these years were typed into the concordance from

the annual source:



U.S. Imports for Consumption and General Imports, TSUSA Commodity 

by Country of Origin, FT246, Bureau of the Census, Washington, D.C.,

1972-1977.



The SIC and Rev. 1 SITC numbers corresponding to the 1972-1977 TSUSA 

numbers were obtained from:



U.S. Foreign Trade Statistics. Classifications and Cross-Classifications, 

1974. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 

December 1975.



The concordance SITCR2_1.ASC between Rev. 1 and Rev. 2 SITC was obtained 

from Robert Lipsey, National Bureau of Economic Research, and was used t

convert the SITC codes for the 1972-1977 period to a Rev. 2 basis.