ct_get_bulk: Get trade data from the UN Comtrade API

Description

This function queries the UN Comtrade API to retrieve international trade data. It allows for detailed specification of the query, including the type of data (goods or services), frequency (annual or monthly), commodity classification, flow direction, and more. By providing everything for certain parameters, you can query all possible values. The function is opinionated in that it already verifies certain parameters for you and is more than a pure wrapper around the API.

Usage

ct_get_bulk(
  type = "goods",
  frequency = "A",
  commodity_classification = "HS",
  reporter = "all_countries",
  start_date = NULL,
  end_date = NULL,
  tidy_cols = TRUE,
  verbose = FALSE,
  primary_token = get_primary_comtrade_key(),
  update = FALSE,
  requests_per_second = 10/60,
  cache = FALSE,
  download_bulk_files = TRUE
)

Value

A data.frame with trade data or, if process = FALSE, a httr2 response object.

Arguments

type: The type of returned trade data. Possible values: 'goods' for trade in goods, 'services' for trade in services. Default: 'goods'.
frequency: The frequency of returned trade data. Possible values: 'A' for annual data, 'M' for monthly data. Default: 'A'.
commodity_classification: The trade classification scheme. Possible values for goods: c('HS','H0','H1','H2','H3','H4','H5','H6')and c(S1','S2','S3','S4','SS','B4','B5'); for services: c('EB02','EB10','EB10S','EB'). Default: 'HS'.
reporter: Reporter ISO3 code(s), everything or all_countries. See comtradr::country_codes or comtradr::ct_get_ref_table('reporter') for possible values. all_countries returns all countries without aggregates everything returns all possible parameters. Default: 'all_countries'.
start_date: The start date of the query. Format: yyyy for yearly, yyyy-mm for monthly.
end_date: The end date of the query. Format: yyyy for yearly, yyyy-mm for monthly. Max: 12 years after start date for annual data, one year for monthly data.
tidy_cols: If TRUE, returns tidy column names. If FALSE, returns raw column names. Default: TRUE.
verbose: If TRUE, sends status updates to the console. If FALSE, runs functions quietly. Default: FALSE.
primary_token: Your primary UN Comtrade API token. Default: stored token from comtradr::set_primary_comtrade_key.
update: If TRUE, downloads possibly updated reference tables from the UN. Default: FALSE.
requests_per_second: Rate of requests per second executed, usually specified as a fraction, e.g. 10/60 for 10 requests per minute, see req_throttle() for details.
cache: A logical value to determine, whether requests should be cached or not. If set to True, tools::R_user_dir(which = 'cache') is used to determine the location of the cache. Use the .Renviron file to set the R_USER_CACHE_DIR in order to change this location. Default: False.
download_bulk_files: If TRUE downloads all files that are returned from the Comtrade API as a list for the specified parameters. This can result in large writing and reading operations from your file system.

Details

The UN Comtrade database provides a repository of official international trade statistics and relevant analytical tables. It contains annual trade statistics starting from 1988 and monthly trade statistics since 2000 for goods data

Parameters that accept everything will query all possible values. For example, setting commodity_code = 'everything' will retrieve data for all commodity codes. This can be useful for broad queries but may result in large datasets.