Export statistics: they're all a load of inconsistent nonsense

[fivemack]

According to the CIA Factbook entry for Russia,

Russia imports $15.68b worth of Stuff from Ukraine
Russia exports $11b worth of Stuff to Ukraine

According to the entry for Ukraine,

Ukraine imports $6.88b worth of Stuff from Russia
Russia exports $15.54b worth of Stuff to Ukraine.

There's no possible purchasing-power-parity adjustment that makes these figures make sense; where has the four billion dollars gone?

If you mutter darkly about corruption in the East, consider

US entry says US -> Canada is $213.3b
Canada entry says US -> Canada is $187.1b
Canada entry says Canada -> US is $310.4b
US entry says Canada -> US is $293.6b

which set of entries indicate that a sum of about the GDP of Kenya annually has been statistically mislaid.

Comments

[jojomojo.livejournal.com]

Hmm...how accurate is the World Factbook as a source of statistics? And are those statistics collated on the same date for each country?

[naath.livejournal.com]

Different definitions of 'import' and 'stuff'?

[sraun]

Last I knew, the data source for that type of information was the country in question. So, Canada reports one set of numbers, the US reports a different set of numbers - you'll have to know how the numbers were generated to reconcile the differences.

As one simple possibility - what happens if one side is counting exported / imported service work, and the other isn't? Say, calls to customer service centers?

[redbird]

I have nothing useful to say, but would like to remind you of economic statistics about the universe in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the book): Imports, none. Exports, none. And then a bit about the complete lack of an economy, because the only convertible currency is pobble beads, and they are convertible only to other pobble beads.