Contains data from the World Bank's data portal. There is also a consolidated country dataset on HDX.

Trade is a key means to fight poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals, specifically by improving developing country access to markets, and supporting a rules based, predictable trading system. In cooperation with other international development partners, the World Bank launched the Transparency in Trade Initiative to provide free and easy access to data on country-specific trade policies.

This table shows exports, imports and sum/average of exports and imports as percentage of nominal gross domestic product (GDP). The indicators are calculated for trade in goods, trade in services and total trade in goods and services. The average of imports and exports, which indicates roughly the size of international trade, is the sum of imports and exports divided by two.

Trade (% of GDP) in Maldives was reported at 150 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Maldives - Trade (% of GDP) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on March of 2025.

Trade (% of GDP) in Afghanistan was reported at 67.27 % in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Afghanistan - Trade (% of GDP) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on March of 2025.

From the Summer of 2007 until the end of 2009 (at least), the world was gripped by a series of economic crises commonly known as the Global Financial Crisis (2007-2008) and the Great Recession (2008-2009). The financial crisis was triggered by the collapse of the U.S. housing market, which caused panic on Wall Street, the center of global finance in New York. Due to the outsized nature of the U.S. economy compared to other countries and particularly the centrality of U.S. finance for the world economy, the crisis spread quickly to other countries, affecting most regions across the globe. By 2009, global GDP growth was in negative territory, with international credit markets frozen, international trade contracting, and tens of millions of workers being made unemployed.

Global similarities, global differences

Since the 1980s, the world economy had entered a period of integration and globalization. This process particularly accelerated after the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War (1947-1991). This was the period of the 'Washington Consensus', whereby the U.S. and international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF promoted policies of economic liberalization across the globe. This increasing interdependence and openness to the global economy meant that when the crisis hit in 2007, many countries experienced the same issues. This is particularly evident in the synchronization of the recessions in the most advanced economies of the G7. Nevertheless, the aggregate global GDP number masks the important regional differences which occurred during the recession. While the more advanced economies of North America, Western Europe, and Japan were all hit hard, along with countries who are reliant on them for trade or finance, large emerging economies such as India and China bucked this trend. In particular, China's huge fiscal stimulus in 2008-2009 likely did much to prevent the global economy from sliding further into a depression. In 2009, while the United States' GDP sank to -2.6 percent, China's GDP, as reported by national authorities, was almost 10 percent.

Imports of low carbon technology products comprise all low carbon technology products entering the national territory. A relatively high share of low carbon technology products imports indicates that an economy purchases a significant share of low carbon technology products from other economies. Exports of low carbon technology products comprise all low carbon technology products leaving the national territory. A relatively high share of low carbon technology products exports indicates that an economy produces and sells a significant share of low carbon technology products to other economies. An economy’s trade balance in low carbon technology products is the difference between its exports and imports of low carbon technology products.Comparative advantage is a measure of the relative advantage or disadvantage a particular economy has in a certain class of goods (in this case, low carbon technology products), and can be used to evaluate export potential in that class of goods. A value greater than one indicates a relative advantage in low carbon technology products, while a value of less than one indicates a relative disadvantage.Sources: Department of Economic and Social Affairs/United Nations. 2022. United Nations Comtrade database. https://comtrade.un.org. International Monetary Fund (IMF) Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS). https://data.imf.org/dot. World Economic Outlook (WEO) Database. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2022/April. IMF staff calculations.Category: Mitigation,Transition to a Low-Carbon EconomyData series: Comparative advantage in low carbon technology productsExports of low carbon technology productsExports of low carbon technology products as percent of GDPExports of low carbon technology products as share of total exportsImports of low carbon technology productsImports of low carbon technology products as percent of GDPImports of low carbon technology products as share of total importsTotal trade in low carbon technology productsTotal trade in low carbon technology products as percent of GDPTrade balance in low carbon technology productsTrade balance in low carbon technology products as percent of GDPMetadata:Sources: Trade data from UN Comtrade Database (https://comtrade.un.org/). Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) 2017. Trade aggregates from IMF Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) (data.imf.org/dot). GDP data from World Economic Outlook.Methodology:Low carbon technology products are estimated by aggregating HS 6-digit commodities identified as low carbon technology products based on Pigato, Miria A., Simon J. Black, Damien Dussaux, Zhimin Mao, Miles McKenna, Ryan Rafaty, and Simon Touboul. 2020. Technology Transfer and Innovation for Low-Carbon Development. International Development in Focus. Washington, DC: World Bank, and IMF research. Trade balance in low carbon technology products is calculated as low carbon technology products exports less low carbon technology products imports. A positive trade balance means an economy has a surplus in low carbon technology products, while a negative trade balance means an economy has a deficit in low carbon technology products.Total goods are estimated by aggregating all commodities. Comparative advantage is calculated as the proportion of an economy’s exports that are low carbon technology products to the proportion of global exports that are low carbon technology products. Total trade in low carbon technology products is calculated as the sum of low carbon technology products exports and low carbon technology products imports. National-accounts basis GDP at current prices from the World Economic Outlook is used to calculate the percent of GDP. This measure provides an indication of an economy’s involvement (openness) to trade in low carbon technology products, which is important for understanding how these technologies can be transferred between economies.Methodology Attachment Low Carbon Technology Harmonized System Codes

Abstract

Dataset used in World Bank Policy Research Working Paper #2876, published in World Bank Economic Review, No. 1, 2005, pp. 21-44.

The effects of globalization on income distribution in rich and poor countries are a matter of controversy. While international trade theory in its most abstract formulation implies that increased trade and foreign investment should make income distribution more equal in poor countries and less equal in rich countries, finding these effects has proved elusive. The author presents another attempt to discern the effects of globalization by using data from household budget surveys and looking at the impact of openness and foreign direct investment on relative income shares of low and high deciles. The author finds some evidence that at very low average income levels, it is the rich who benefit from openness. As income levels rise to those of countries such as Chile, Colombia, or Czech Republic, for example, the situation changes, and it is the relative income of the poor and the middle class that rises compared with the rich. It seems that openness makes income distribution worse before making it better-or differently in that the effect of openness on a country's income distribution depends on the country's initial income level.

Kind of data

Aggregate data [agg]

This folder contains data used in chapter 4 of the thesis. Various data sources are used. Data on trade openness, services sector employment, education, and financial development are sourced from the World Development Indicators Database of the World Bank. The data on digital infrastructure captures Internet access, fixed telephone subscriptions (per 100 people), and mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people). Data on institutional quality and inflation comes World Governance Indicators and while data on International Monetary Fund (IMF) database respectively. For missing observations, besides the institutional quality variable, we impute these missing observations using their growth trend. However, for the variable of institutional quality, data points for the years 1997, 1999, and 2001 are not available. We use the averages of the two periods before and after to impute them. The final sample contains data on 45 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1996–2017. The analysis was implemented in stata. We use Fixed-Effects Method for the baseline estimates. Subsequently, we address endogeneity by employing the Fixed Effect IV (FEIV) method and the Lewbel (2012) Fixed Effect IV (FE-IV LB) approach.

Abstract

Small states have attracted a large amount of research. In this paper we test whether small states are any different from other states in terms of their income, growth, and volatility outcomes. We find that, controlling for location, small states have higher per capita GDP than other states. This income advantage is largely due to a productivity advantage, constituting evidence against the idea that small states suffer from an inability to exploit increasing returns to scale. Small states also do not have different per capita growth rates than other states. Small states do have greater volatility of annual growth rates, which is in part due to their greater volatility of terms of trade shocks. This terms of trade-based volatility is in turn due to small states’ greater openness. However, their greater openness on balance has a positive net payoff for growth. The one differential policy measure that might be relevant for small states is to further open up to international capital markets in order to better diversify risk, but the benefits of even that are still unresolved in the literature. We conclude that small states are no different from large states, and so should receive the same policy advice that large states do.

Geographic coverage

The database contains data on 176 countries from all regions in the world.

Kind of data

Aggregate data [agg]

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]