The Bilateral Longitudinal Observations and Country Statistics (BLOCS) database is an open source, validated aggregation of internationally recognized data made available for research purposes. It consists of varying measures for bilateral trade data from 1948 to 2023 and bilateral investment data between 2001 and 2023. These data are accompanied by an extensive set of variables that consider additional economic, political, cultural, institutional and societal factors assigned to each pair of countries for every year. This codebook offers a description of BLOCS, an explanation of how the data were constructed, a summary of variables and some suggestions for how to use them.
We have combined datasets, with different coding practices, to offer comparable measures on trade, investment and agreements between countries. We have also transformed DESTA data into a bilateral panel to explore the effects of specific trade agreement provisions. In this version, we added updated UN country codes (2026), Deep Trade Agreements (Mattoo et al., 2020) and technological-intensity classifications based on the SITC–Lall Concordance. We also retired the World Development Indicators from the World Bank (2021b) and the Education and Science indicators from UNESCO (2021). A complete list of changes and improvements can be found in section four. Continue Reading