2018 Impact of Trade Key Findings

Posted by Brynne Godfrey, Intern


During my summer Statistical Analysis and Economic Impact internship with the World Trade Center Harrisburg, I was in charge of compiling the Impact of Trade: An Analysis of Goods and Services Exported 2016 report. Export data by Pennsylvania county was provided by the Brookings institution in the form of nearly 123,000 NAICS codes. This dataset was unlike most due to its comprehensive nature; not only did it include merchandise export data, but data on services was incorporated as well. I was in charge of first cleaning the dataset and then began to analyze the statistics, constructing graphs and tables in order to examine the impact of trade in the eight counties within the Southcentral Pennsylvania region and compare them to the county as a whole. Analysis on the Southcentral region compared to the other regions and the entire state of Pennsylvania was also completed.

Analysis from this report is based on the years 2003-2016. This time period accounts for post-recession economic growth and a falling unemployment rate. Exporting and global trade played a significant role during this time period to help the economy prosper again as more and more companies continued to enter the global market. This report focuses on the impact of exports and how it bears on the economic well-being of Pennsylvania, specifically in the Southcentral region. 

Key Findings

Many significant findings could be pulled from the data provided by the Brookings Institution. Some key findings were:

• From 2003 to 2016, the Southcentral Pennsylvania region experienced an overall real export increase of 50.72%.
• Southcentral PA is ranked second in terms of exported manufactured goods, exporting only about $600 million less than the Southeast region and exceeding the Southwest region by over $2.0 billion.
• The Southcentral region is ranked third in terms of real exports from all combined industries.
• Exports supported 69,344 jobs in the Southcentral region in 2016.

The Southcentral region of Pennsylvania plays a key role in the export industry, contributing to the economic growth that took place from 2003-2016.