World Trade Flows Characterization: Unit Values, Trade Types and Price Ranges

We provide a systematic decomposition of world trade using a new database built on an harmonized version of Trade Unit Values, CEPII's database providing a world trade matrix of unit values for more than 230 countries and 5 100 products over the period 2000-2012. The decomposition allows to associate each flow with a trade type (one-way trade, intra-industry trade in similar products or in differentiated products) and a price range (low, middle or high range). We show that world trade is still mainly inter-industry and concerns more and more middle-market products.