Summary
These time series data provide information on the balance of payments among countries and geographical areas of the world. Detailed tabulations included in this collection describe (1) transactions in goods, services, and income between an economy and the rest of the world, (2) changes of ownership and other changes in that country's monetary gold, special drawing rights (SDRs), and claims and liabilities to the rest of the world, and (3) unrequited transfers and counterpart entries that are needed to balance, in the accounting sense, any entries for previous transactions and changes that are not mutually offsetting. Aggregated and detailed presentations show data for items such as investments, short- and long-term capital, reserves, and changes in reserves.
Citation
Export Citation:
Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage
Restrictions
ICPSR obtained these data from the International Monetary Fund under the terms of a contract which states that the data are for the sole use of ICPSR and may not be sold or provided to third parties outside of the ICPSR membership. Individuals at institutions that are not members of ICPSR may obtain these data directly from the IMF.
Time Period(s)
1965 -- 1998
Date of Collection
1965 -- 1998
Data Collection Notes
(1) ICPSR's subscription with IMF for monthly updates of the DIRECTION OF TRADE (ICPSR 7628), BALANCE OF PAYMENTS STATISTICS (ICPSR 8623) and GOVERNMENT FINANCE STATISTICS (ICPSR 8624) series expired with the July 1998 tapes. ICPSR staff has been negotiating with the IMF staff to resume and continue the subscription for another year. We apologize for the resulting delays and inconveniences to our user community.x (2) The data are stored in packed zoned decimal format. A supplemental COBOL processing program is available for use with this dataset. (3) Each time series can contain a variable number of logical records. The exact number of records in any time series in this collection is dependent upon the availability of annual, quarterly, and monthly data. There are approximately 50,000 time series included in this collection. (4) The term "country," as used in this dataset, does not in all cases refer to a territorial entity which is a state as understood by international law and practice. The term also covers some territorial entities that are not states but for which statistical data are maintained and provided internationally on a separate and independent basis. (5) For intercountry comparison, all statements are expressed in terms of SDRs. When not reported in SDRs, figures are obtained by conversion. (6) One codebook now documents these four IMF studies: DIRECTION OF TRADE (ICPSR 7628), INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL STATISTICS (ICPSR 7629), BALANCE OF PAYMENTS STATISTICS (ICPSR 8623), and GOVERNMENT FINANCE STATISTICS (ICPSR 8624). (7) Years for which no data (monthly, quarterly, or annual) are available have been eliminated from each time series. (8) The codebook is provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.
Universe
135 countries and geographical areas.
Data Source
Central bank reports and bulletins, IMF area departments, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, International Labor Organization, IMF Treasurer's Department, the United Nations, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and information from national authorities
aggregate data, and program source code
Original Release Date
1987-02-26
Version Date
1992-02-16
Notes
Data in this collection are available only to users at ICPSR member institutions.
- The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented.
This study is provided by ICPSR. ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for a diverse and expanding social science research community.