This paper provides a detailed description of recent research to re-estimate and re-specify the international
trade volume and price equations that are used in the OECD Economics Department to analyse and project
international trade developments. The set of countries covered by the estimations has been significantly
enlarged, with estimates of the factors affecting export performance, import penetration and trade prices
presented for 41 countries, including countries that have recently joined the OECD (Chile, Estonia, Israel
and Slovenia) and major emerging countries (Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia and South
Africa). Reflecting the heterogeneity of countries included in the estimations, procedures for grouping
them have been modified to allow for country specifics as much as possible. Structural breaks over the
estimation period – which now typically covers the mid-1980s to 2012 and includes the global trade
collapse of 2009 – are dealt with by the flexible modelling of deterministic trends, including the allowance
for several rather than single trend reversals.
