Data on bilateral trade flowing between nations fits right into the definition of a dataset with entities and relationships to explore. Katherine Barbieri, University of South Carolina, and Omar Keshk, Ohio State University, maintain a dataset that tracks the flow of trade between nations between 1870 and 2017. Amounts are converted to their equivalent US dollar values as of 2014.
The dataset is available publicly as part of The Correlates of War Project. Here is the link to the project: http://www.correlatesofwar.org/data-sets/bilateral-trade. We will be using version 4.0 of this dataset in this chapter.
The IMF's Direction of Trade Statistics (DOTS) quarterly release shares trade data between nations and is a source from which the project aggregates data. It is important to specify that DOTS includes only the trade value of merchandise (or ready-to-sell goods)...
