Trader concentration for Ireland's foreign trade and the implications for post-1992 intra-EU trade statistics

Abstract

Since 1993 the detailed statistics on merchandise trade between Ireland and the other members of the European Union have been collected by means of a statistical survey of importers and exporters. This move from Customs administrative-based statistics to survey-based ones has had significant effects on the collection of Ireland's statistics of trade with our fellow EU member states (intra-EU trade). In this paper we look at Ireland's trade in 1992 and examine ? the degree to which it is concentrated among the larger traders ? the degree of concentration among the various commodities ? the selection of exclusion thresholds for the detailed INTRASTAT survey ? the effect of the exclusion of small traders from the new survey. In Section 1 of the paper we set out the background and explain the data sources used. Section 2 contains analyses of the concentration of Ireland's total foreign trade and Section 3 shows how this influenced the setting up and running of the new system for the collection of trade statistics.