The simplest way to think about international trade is the transfer of goods – cars, clothing, bananas. Countries that export more goods are generally better off, because they’re earning money, which allows them to import and build their economies in the process. But services are also vital to exports. In fact, services play a dual role in building an economy’s export competitiveness.
The second role services play in export competitiveness involves diversification. With cost reductions and technological progress, services have become more tradeable. Exporting services provides an opportunity for export diversification and growth, which is important for economic stability. If global demand for one sector drops, a country with diversified exports can rely on others such as banking, transport, or business services.
Many governments are interested in how services support their country’s exports and economy at large. For example, how much value added do services exports, such as transport or communications, generate in a country? And how much of that is generated directly versus indirectly as inputs like transportation in our tee-shirt example? What types of services inputs, and is that different from comparator countries?
Answers to such questions are typically left unanswered because systematic data is not readily available on how services contribute to exports across developing countries and sectors.
The Export of Value Added (EVA) Database was developed to fulfill this need. The database was recently launched on the World Bank Group’s World Integrated Trade Solutions (WITS) data website. It includes data for user-specific queries and also has data for bulk download.
The EVA Database measures the domestic value added contained in exports for about 120 economies across 27 sectors, including nine commercial services sectors, three primary sectors, and 14 manufacturing sectors. The data spans intermittent years between 1997 and 2011.
What sets the EVA Database apart is the wide coverage of developing countries: over 70 of the economies included are low- and middle-income.