Complexity Thesis Support

A repository with example code for master's thesis students performing country-level complexity-relatedness analyses.

Please refer to the document thesis_instructions.pdf on Toledo for general instructions.

Usage

1. Download the raw data from the data sources specified below
2. Specify the path to your raw data in RAW_DATA_PATH in the data_processing.R script
3. Specify the baci_version, HS_version and HS_digits, as well as the years for which you have BACI data in the data_processing.R script
4. Run the data_processing.R script, which will:
   1. Import the BACI trade data
   2. Aggregate the trade flows to the specified number of digits (HS_digits); recommended number of digits is 4
   3. Add the country ISO3 and product HS codes and descriptions
   4. Filter the dataset on the selected country and product sample (removing small nodes)
   5. Compute RCA_cp, M_cp, diversity_c, ubiquity_p, ECI_c, PCI_p, proximity_pp, and relatedness_cp (dens_cp)
   6. Export the country-product-year level dataset to cp_df.csv
5. Create new script(s) for your analysis

Note that the data_processing.R script serves as supporting material for the preprocessing of the data, and does not include all code required for the full analysis.

Data Sources

• CEPII BACI international trade data (HS07, 2007-2023)(https://www.cepii.fr/CEPII/en/bdd_modele/bdd_modele_item.asp?id=37)
• UN HS product descriptions (https://unstats.un.org/unsd/classifications/Econ)
  • Download "All HS codes and descriptions" xlsx file for product descriptions for all HS digits

Directory Structure

├── analysis
│   └── README.txt
├── complexity-thesis-support.Rproj
├── data
│   ├── data_processed
│   └── data_raw
├── processing
│   └── data_processing.R
└── README.md

Citation

Please cite this repository as

De Wettinck, Q. (2025). Complexity Thesis Support [Source code]. https://github.com/quintendewettinck/complexity-thesis-support

BibTeX:

@software{De_Wettinck_Complexity_Thesis_Support_2025,
  author = {De Wettinck, Quinten},
  license = {MIT},
  month = oct,
  title = {{Complexity Thesis Support}},
  url = {https://github.com/quintendewettinck/complexity-thesis-support},
  year = {2025}
}

For more details on the calculation and interpretation of the metrics, see

De Wettinck, Q., De Bruyne, K., & Bam, W. (2025). Economic Complexity: Promise and Potential for Sustainable Development Decision Support (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. 5412234). Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5412234

BibTeX:

@misc{DeWettinck.etal2025,
  type = {{{SSRN Scholarly Paper}}},
  title = {Economic {{Complexity}}: {{Promise}} and {{Potential}} for {{Sustainable Development Decision Support}}},
  shorttitle = {Economic {{Complexity}}},
  author = {De Wettinck, Quinten and De Bruyne, Karolien and Bam, Wouter},
  year = 2025,
  number = {5412234},
  publisher = {Social Science Research Network},
  address = {Rochester, NY},
  doi = {10.2139/ssrn.5412234},
  urldate = {2025-10-22},
  archiveprefix = {Social Science Research Network},
  langid = {english}
}