An Update to The Trade Section of CMD-MD

Several small updates have been made to the trade section of CMD-MD. This includes using the IMF COMTRADE database to fill in some missing historical bilateral trade data. In particular, U.S. bilateral trade data was added for Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines, Colombia, China, Venezuela, Pakistan, and Singapore.  This data, combined with country-specific inflation and exchange rates, allowed for the inclusion of Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines into the calculation of the historical real trade-weighted dollar index.  All eight counties were allowed into the historical nominal trade-weighted dollar index.

The new data helps to provide a more complete picture of U.S. bilateral trade.  My trade database begins in 1920 and provides a narrow country coverage, whereas COMTRADE begins in February of 1960 with extensive country coverage.

Originally, the entire point was so that I could create a real trade-weighted dollar index, but the required additional exchange rate indexes and country-specific inflation data broaden the database out to have a rudimentary international flavor.