***Import Prices (SITC basis)****



Description:

 

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

In some files, there is an import value and an import 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. imports and exports is the Division of 

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

price by repeat interviewing OF U.S. firms that import or export 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 SITPRICE.ASC contains the import price indexes at the 2-digit 

SITC Revision 3 level (annual, quarterly and monthly for recent years)

for various starting years up until 1995.  Selected 3-digit industries 

are also included.  The record layout for the file is as follows:



columns 1-3	-	SITC code (1, 2, or 3 digits)

columns 5-6	-	Year

columns 8-10	-	Month, preceded by M (M01, M02, etc.)

columns 12-16	-	Price index  



Missing and Special Values:



For many of the series, only quarterly data is available, and is

included in months 03, 06, 09, and 12.  The price index is missing

for the other months, as indicated by a blank.



Some SITC codes are a residual category, made up of all other

products for which price information is available but is not

used elsewhere in the price indexes.  These SITC codes are appended

with R, such as 05R.

 

Size:  SITPRICE.ASC has 23,605 records.



Related Files:



Because the SITC price indexes are on a Rev. 3 basis, they can be

used with the import values reported in SITC89.ASC,...,SITC94.ASC,

which is also on a Rev. 3 basis but at the 5-digit level.  Thus, the 

import values would have to be aggregated to a 3-digit level to be fully 

comparable to the import prices.  For years before 1989, the SITC 

import values are reported on a Rev. 3 basis, 3-digit level, in 

SITC72.ASC,...,SITC88.ASC.  



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 import 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.