Statistical analysis of under- and overinvoicing of imports

This paper uses trading partners' data comparisons at three different levels of refinement to verify whether the elimination of an over-valued exchange rate, which itself has been claimed to lead to over-valuation of imports, affects the valuation practice of importers. The advantages of correcting the import and export data of trading partners for eventual discrepancies in the volume of these trade flows is highlighted. Data for Turkey, Pakistan and The Netherlands are used. Turkey devalued in 1970, while Pakistan devalued in 1972. Data availability and the large discrepancy between reported exports to and imports from The Netherlands suggested the analysis of the data for this country.