TradeWeave is a free, open-access global trade analytics platform covering 238 countries, 5,115 products, and 29 years of bilateral trade data from BACI/CEPII. It provides interactive visualizations, country profiles, tariff simulations, economic complexity rankings, and trade forecasting tools.

What data sources does TradeWeave use?

TradeWeave combines data from BACI/CEPII (bilateral trade flows), WITS/TRAINS (tariff rates), World Bank WDI (macroeconomic indicators), ESCAP-World Bank (bilateral trade costs), FRED and BLS (freight indices, exchange rates), and FAOSTAT (agricultural trade).

How can I analyze a country's trade profile?

Visit the Country Profiles page and select any of 238 countries to see their export composition, top trade partners, revealed comparative advantage (RCA), Economic Complexity Index (ECI), trade diversification, and 30-year trends.

What is the Economic Complexity Index (ECI)?

The Economic Complexity Index (ECI), developed by Hidalgo and Hausmann, measures the productive knowledge embedded in a country's export basket. Countries that export a diverse set of sophisticated products score higher. TradeWeave ranks all 238 countries by ECI from 1996 to 2024.

Can I simulate the impact of tariff changes?

Yes. TradeWeave's Tariff Simulator lets you model how tariff changes affect import volumes using real product-level demand elasticities and MFN tariff rates for over 1,200 HS4 products.

How far back does the trade data go?

The primary BACI dataset covers 1996-2024 with HS6 product detail. TradeWeave also includes historical trade data spanning over 200 years (1800-present) from academic compilations.

Model methodsTrade costs

HS6 trade substitution elasticity

The signed HS6 substitution elasticity for a product, with a magnitude-based interpretation of how readily import demand responds to price changes.

Surface: /importer

Data

Vintage

BACI 202501 (CEPII), HS92, 1995-2024 (retrieved 2026-04-28)

Tables

data/parquet/trade_elasticity.parquet

Sources

Method

The shipped table is keyed by six-digit HS code and stores sigma together with zero and positive flags. The route left-pads the requested code to six digits before lookup.

The repository identifies these as HS6 substitution elasticities from Soderbery (2018), Journal of International Economics 114. Stored sigma values are signed and negative where estimated.

The endpoint returns the stored signed sigma. It applies abs(sigma) only when producing its human-readable interpretation: below 1 is inelastic, below 2 is unit elastic, below 5 is elastic, and 5 or more is highly elastic.

The zero and positive flags take precedence over the magnitude bands. A null sigma is reported as no estimate.

Equations

Magnitudeelasticity magnitude = abs(sigma)

Interpretation bandsinelastic if abs(sigma) < 1; unit elastic if abs(sigma) < 2; elastic if abs(sigma) < 5; highly elastic otherwise

Validation

Direct inspection of data/parquet/trade_elasticity.parquet on 2026-08-27 found 5,050 HS6 rows. Of 4,566 non-null sigma values, every one is negative, consistent with signed storage; 484 rows have null sigma.
HS 610910 resolves to a shipped row with sigma -7.47649, so /api/products/610910/elasticity is a concrete linkable example.
The parquet schema is hs6, zero, positive and sigma, exactly matching the route lookup and response fields.

Limitations

The repository documentation says the API takes the absolute value, but the JSON response retains the signed sigma. Only the interpretation logic uses abs(sigma).
The named sources do not document the estimator equation, estimation sample, standard errors or a benchmark validation, so none is claimed.
If trade_elasticity is absent, the route returns HTTP 404 and tells the operator to run ingest_geodep_elasticity.py. That script is not in the repository.
A missing HS6 row returns HTTP 200 with sigma null rather than HTTP 404.
The zero and positive flags can override a non-null signed sigma when constructing the interpretation.
data/parquet/tariff_elasticity.parquet is a distinct 1,221-row HS4 table keyed by hs4 with epsilon_hs4. This endpoint does not read it.

References

Soderbery (2018), Trade Elasticities, Heterogeneity, and Optimal Tariffs, Journal of International Economics 114.

Endpoints

Path	Method	Returns	Example
/api/products/[hs]/elasticity	GET	The zero and positive flags, stored signed sigma and magnitude-based interpretation for one zero-padded HS6 code.	/api/products/610910/elasticity

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Method

The shipped table is keyed by six-digit HS code and stores sigma together with zero and positive flags. The route left-pads the requested code to six digits before lookup.

The repository identifies these as HS6 substitution elasticities from Soderbery (2018), Journal of International Economics 114. Stored sigma values are signed and negative where estimated.

The zero and positive flags take precedence over the magnitude bands. A null sigma is reported as no estimate.

Validation

Direct inspection of data/parquet/trade_elasticity.parquet on 2026-08-27 found 5,050 HS6 rows. Of 4,566 non-null sigma values, every one is negative, consistent with signed storage; 484 rows have null sigma.

HS 610910 resolves to a shipped row with sigma -7.47649, so /api/products/610910/elasticity is a concrete linkable example.

The parquet schema is hs6, zero, positive and sigma, exactly matching the route lookup and response fields.

Limitations

The repository documentation says the API takes the absolute value, but the JSON response retains the signed sigma. Only the interpretation logic uses abs(sigma).

The named sources do not document the estimator equation, estimation sample, standard errors or a benchmark validation, so none is claimed.

If trade_elasticity is absent, the route returns HTTP 404 and tells the operator to run ingest_geodep_elasticity.py. That script is not in the repository.

A missing HS6 row returns HTTP 200 with sigma null rather than HTTP 404.

The zero and positive flags can override a non-null signed sigma when constructing the interpretation.

data/parquet/tariff_elasticity.parquet is a distinct 1,221-row HS4 table keyed by hs4 with epsilon_hs4. This endpoint does not read it.

Path

Method

Returns

Example

/api/products/[hs]/elasticity

GET

The zero and positive flags, stored signed sigma and magnitude-based interpretation for one zero-padded HS6 code.

/api/products/610910/elasticity