
OEC: The Observatory of Economic Complexity - jonbaer
https://oec.world/en/
======
abainbridge
The first page I looked at shows exports of the US
[https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/usa/all/...](https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/usa/all/show/2017/)

It doesn't include software, so seemingly ignores the economic activity of
some of the largest companies in the US. Does anyone know what's going on
there? I guess software isn't visible at customs boarder checks, so isn't
included.

~~~
cuchoi
Physical goods are easier to track than services, since the former have to go
through a port.

The UN has made great efforts to standardize _goods_ data, but AFAIK they
don't have services data. This is the data that this website is using:
[https://comtrade.un.org/](https://comtrade.un.org/).

That said, the Harvard version of The Observatory of Economic Complexity, the
Atlas of Economic Complexity (there is an MIT/Harvard rivalry here), includes
services data:
[http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=231&product=und...](http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=231&product=undefined&year=2017&productClass=HS&target=Product&partner=undefined&startYear=undefined).

From the Atlas's website: "The raw trade data on goods are derived from
countries’ reporting to the United Nations Statistical Division (COMTRADE).
The trade data on services are from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Direction of Trade Statistics database, via the World Development Indicators."

------
qubex
Several comments seem to be somewhat critical of the visualisations and the
lack of quote data sources.

I’m an economist and I have to say this is a beautiful exercise in
visualisation. The Federal Reserve’s Economic Data (FRED) facility is my go-to
source of quick numbers, alongside Bloomberg and Wolfram Alpha, but these
visual depictions are simply beautiful.

Congratulations to whomever assembled this together.

------
billfruit
What is the 'Broadcasting Equipment' which is China's largest export category
and one of US's largest import category.

Also the site would benefit from having some interesting curated content on
the landing page. Hiding all interesting content behind a search box, does not
give any indication of what sort of content is available.

~~~
yorwba
_Broadcasting Equipment is also known as television, radio broadcasting,
antenna, digital, wireless, FM, AM, bluetooth, microwave._
[https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/8525/](https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/8525/)

So anything with a radio, like phones for example.

------
xenocratus
Doesn't seem to include services - at least that's my rationale for why the
trade deficit of UK appears as so damn large - about 50% of imports, $300bn or
so

------
cosmic_ape
Couldn't find any references to data sources. This would be much more serious
and useful if sources were listed.

Of course, it would be even more useful if there was a "download all data"
link...

~~~
yorwba
I'm guessing the source is
[https://comtrade.un.org/](https://comtrade.un.org/) Who else but the UN has
that kind of data?

~~~
cosmic_ape
From the other comment it looks like they indeed use comtrade.

The IMF and Worldbank have some similar public data, although not in that
amount of detail. [1] And I recently stumbled upon a project that tries to
standartise the API for a lot of official data sources [2].

[1]
[https://www.imf.org/external/np/ds/matrix.htm](https://www.imf.org/external/np/ds/matrix.htm)
[2] [https://db.nomics.world/](https://db.nomics.world/)

