If you have a passion for analysing and assessing the dynamics of global trade policy, then you are truly living in the golden age. On October 24, another analytical tool was added to the Tariff Tracker (TT), the Trade Monitoring Database (TMDB), the World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) and the Global Trade Alert (GTA).

Do these have pride of place on your favourites banner? Even only one? If you did not know, these tools are available free of charge, and the links to them appear at the end of this piece.

The October 24 announcement is the result of yet another collaborative effort. Do you know the collaborators? The World Trade Organisation (WTO) and its economists, along with economists from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), developed a new indicator – called the Trade Policy Activity (TPA) Index – to measure global trade policy dynamics.

The WTO and the IMF developed the TT, the IMF the TMDB, and the World Bank the WITS, while the GTA was developed in close cooperation with WTO members.

Do you find the collaboration among three institutions to be of interest? What binds them? Is there anything that does? The IMF and the World Bank are generally considered (erroneously) to be the only Bretton Woods institutions. The third – the WTO – could rightly be considered the Cinderella institution.

Is its lack of recognition attributable to the fact that it should have been named the International Trade Organisation and established shortly after World War II – 50 years before its actual establishment in 1995?

The collaboration between the international trade triad has created a treasure trove of international trade applications.

Before offering an exploratory reminder of the applications, let us start with the most recent addition and then work backwards.

The TPA Index is expected to fill an important information gap by providing policymakers with an early warning mechanism for potential policy shifts. This confident assessment is attributable to the index revealing a marked uptick in trade policy activity from around 2019 to 2020, reflecting increased interventions in trade to achieve a range of policy objectives.

The change also corresponds to the period of the Covid-19 pandemic, heightened trade policy tensions among large economies, and rising geopolitical risks. The index draws on a range of sources of information on trade policy measures across many economies and products. Using a dynamic factor model, the index captures global trade policy dynamics in a timely and comprehensive fashion. The index’s underlying data primarily draws on two existing trade monitoring applications: the TMDB and the GTA.

The TT monitors changes in applied tariff duties. Its aim is to improve transparency regarding tariff actions, given their trade and macroeconomic implications. The TT records initial levels as well as changes in effective applied duties, along with their implementation dates, at the bilateral and product levels. The dataset initially focuses on the policies of the largest trading countries but will eventually be extended.

The TT covers all trading partners of these countries and all products at the Harmonised System chapter level. Continuously updated, this dataset consolidates information from various sources, including WTO notifications, the TMDB and external media, in collaboration with the IMF. The dataset is available on the WTO Tariff and Trade Data platform, enhancing transparency and supporting informed decision-making within the international trading community.

The WITS software provides access to international merchandise trade, tariff and non-tariff measures data. You can review the ‘country profile’ section to obtain countries’ exports, imports and tariff statistics, along with relevant development data. Customs analysis can be conducted using standard and derived product classifications.

The GTA provides transparency on new trade and trade policy-related measures. The Trade Monitoring Report is circulated every year, generally in November, allowing WTO members to undertake an interactive peer review in the Trade Policy Review Body. The report is developed in close cooperation with WTO members and covers trade measures relating to goods, services and intellectual property. It also provides up-to-date information on other issues, including trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary, technical barriers to trade agriculture, and the environment.

For your banner favourites, visit:

https://ttd.wto.org/en/analysis/tariff- actions; https://tmdb.wto.org/en; https://wits.worldbank.org/; and https://globaltradealert.org/