Development and Globalization: - Unctad

OVERVIEW DEFINITIONS
Between 1980 and 2000, the volume of developing
country exports increased more than six-fold, compared to
a three-fold increase for developed countries. Most of the
expansion of exports has been concentrated in developing
countries of Asia. However, an increase in the volume of
imports of developing Asia has been even more striking -
ten-fold - compared to a three-fold increase globally.
The unit value index of exports for developing countries as
a whole fell sharply in the 1980s. This trend continued,
although less markedly, during the 1990s. More detailed
data show that the value index of exports for South and
East Asian countries remained fairly steady in the 1980s
and increased slightly in the 1990s. The index for African
countries is driven by the index of major African petroleum
exporters. The price index for developed countries showed
a slight tendency to increase over the whole period.
Since 1985, the purchasing power of exports has
increased for both developed and developing countries,
despite the large decrease in developing countries’ terms
of trade prior to the mid-1990s. While African countries’
terms of trade worsened until 1999, the purchasing power
of their exports has been increasing substantially since
1999. Least developed countries’ terms of trade fluctuated
until recent years, in 2001 recovering their 1980 level.
While terms of trade for South and East Asian countries
have also fluctuated, the purchasing power of their exports
has increased over the past two decades and grew by a
factor of almost 2.5 in the last 10 years.
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4.2 International trade in merchandise
● An index reflects changes over time in a quantity that
cannot itself be directly measured or observed.
Important features of index construction are the
coverage, the base period, the weighting system and the
method of averaging observations.
● Value index of exports or imports is the current value of
exports (f.o.b.) or imports (c.i.f.) converted to dollars and
expressed as a percentage of the average for the base
period.
● Unit value index of exports or imports is an indicator
reflecting changes in the price levels of exports or
imports during the reporting period in comparison with
the base period.
● Volume (quantum) index of exports or imports is the
ratio of the value index of exports or imports to the
corresponding unit value index and reflects changes in
the volume of exports and imports.
● Purchasing power of exports is the value index of
exports deflated by the unit value index of imports.
● Terms of trade, or “net barter” terms of trade, are
defined as the ratio of the unit value index of exports to
the unit value index of imports.
DATA SOURCES
[1] UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics 2003, tables 2.1 and 8.1.
For more information, see UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report 2002: Developing Countries in World Trade,
Chapter 4.