Past and present issues in trade statistics. An insider’s view

Trade statistics are perhaps among the oldest official statistics alongside population censuses. Until very recently, trade statistics remained closely tied to their original eighteenth-century purpose of informing the Prince about taxes collected by customs officials; more recently in the mid-twentieth century, they came to serve also in establishing the National Accounts required by the State for managing the economy. Then the world economy became truly global. Trade statistics had to become trans-national and multi-dimensional if they were to be representative of the twenty-first century economic system. The methodology has matured in the 2010s; in the process, trade statistics have gone beyond their initial purpose of serving the State to become a tool for understanding the complex relationships linking various industries across different borders. The resulting information is increasingly used to assess not only the economic dimensions of trade but also its implications in terms of employment and the environment.