The purpose of this assignment is to utilize trade statistics to research markets and analyze trends and opportunities for international trade. These skills may be useful for the team project you complete later in the course. The assignment will build upon data-driven decision-making skills you have developed in other BSBA coursework.

Your report should consist of five sections: 
1. Research Question.  Introduce your research question.  Explain why it matters.  Provide background information from library/internet research.

• Come up with an interesting research question.  Your question should have some relevance for business opportunities.  Alternatively, it is OK to focus on a research question that is more directly relevant for trade policy and economic policy, or for responsible business issues (e.g., environmental sustainability, social impact, equity, ethics).  But choose something that matters and that interests you!  Keep in mind that you will also need to focus on a product that has a clearly identifiable HS product code (see below).
• Your task is to analyze trade data to identify and interpret trends relating to a research question that you pose.  Examples of research questions include the following: What are recent trends in almond exports and what might this mean for future almond export opportunities? Which are the most important export markets for US cosmetics exports?  What opportunities can we detect in the data? How has the COVID-19 pandemic altered trade patterns in computer chips?  What opportunities are enabled by recent shifts? How have other supply chains been disrupted by the pandemic and what will this mean for short- and long-term business opportunities as global value chains are reconfigured? (How) Were US t-shirt imports impacted in the short or long term by the April 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, when a non-conforming factory building collapsed in Bangladesh and led to over 1,000 deaths? When China implemented its ban on plastic waste imports in 2018, did export shipments of plastic waste shift to other destinations or did they cease entirely? Since the US imposed 30% tariffs on imports of solar panels from certain countries, how have trade patterns in the solar industry shifted and what opportunities can we detect?

2. Methodology. Explain and justify the methodology you used in your analysis, such as the countries you included, the time period, and analytical approach. Focus on the ITC trade data; other data sources are not required but may be used.

• Develop a methodology that fits your issue in terms of the direction of trade (exports versus imports), time frame (years or months included), countries included in the analysis, and other options within the database. Your report should focus on using the trade data to present evidence identifying trends relating to the issue you select. Additional research will be helpful to get up to speed with the issue that you select, but your report should focus on directly making sense of the trade data. Present a concise report of your analysis and include tables, charts, and/or graphs as appropriate to draw data-driven conclusions. While not required, you may use statistical procedures in your analysis.
• Finding the Right HS or HTS Product Code: You will need to find the right HS code for your product.  Traded goods are classified under the Harmonized System (HS) code system, which is supposed to be ‘harmonized’ or standardized across countries.  In fact, the US maintains its own HTS system for classifying imports; this is usually equivalent to international standards but each country maintains its own authority to classify goods.  Find your product’s code using the US HTS system: https://hts.usitc.gov/Links to an external site.
• Using the ITC Trade Database for Analyzing US Exports and Imports: Once you have your HS/HTS product code, you will use the US International Trade Commission (ITC) databaseLinks to an external site. to analyze US exports of the product or US imports of the product, depending on your research question.  First, create a free account for the ITC Dataweb system at: https://dataweb.usitc.gov/my-accountLinks to an external site.
• Dataweb is a database providing U.S. merchandise trade and tariff data. This database is free but requires registration. Register in advance for the database.  An in-class tutorial will be provided in the first session of the second week. Once you are logged into the system, you will see many search options on DatawebLinks. https://dataweb.usitc.gov/my-account

3. Results. Incorporate at least one data table and one graph to illustrate your main results. Here are some important considerations:

• You need to select exports (exports from the US to other countries) or imports (imports into the US from other countries).  “Imports for Consumption” captures imports that remain in the US and are consumed here, whereas “General Imports” also includes products that are re-exported to other countries.  “Domestic exports” captures exports originating in the US, while “Total Exports” also includes products that were imported from other countries and are re-exported.
• You will need to let the system know which data (value, quantity, or value/quantity) you want.  Do you want to look at the value of the exports/imports, the quantity of exports/imports (e.g., kilograms, number of units, dozens of t-shirts), and/or the ratio of value/quantity (which of course yields the average price, which in some cases is very useful)?  As with everything, this should tie into your research question.  For some products, the ‘quantity’ measure is not useful – be sure to look at how they measure quantity for your product.
• Specify which countries you are interested in.  The default is to aggregate (combine) all countries together.  In most cases, you’ll want to change this so that you can see data for specific markets.  In general, it is probably a good idea to let the data drive where you focus.  Unless your research question focuses on a specific market, you probably want to look at the top markets and changes over time to identify the main countries you will include in your analysis.  Of course, you can download data for all countries and then just focus on the most important and relevant ones in your conclusions.
• Select the product or commodity that you want to analyze.  The default is to combine all commodities.  In most cases, you’ll need to change the default to focus on a specific product’s HS code on a 4- or 6-digit level.
• There are additional options for reporting the data in the format you want.  I generally recommend listing countries in descending order by value.  More importantly, once you have the results you should download them into a spreadsheet and you can fully analyze and manipulate the data in Excel.

4. Conclusions. Draw appropriate inferences based on your research question and the data you have collected and analyzed.

5. Implications for Business Opportunities, Economic Policy and/or Responsible Business. Discuss implications for your conclusions for business opportunities, trade/economic policy, and/or for responsible business.