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ABSTRACTWhile economists often stress the importance of increasing developing countries' production and exports of manufactures, there are major inconsistencies in the definitions of 'manufactures' employed by national and international agencies. Specifically, developed and developing countries' production data is generally compiled using a far broader definition of manufactures than is employed for trade statistics. This limits the analytical utility of the output and trade data since they are not on a comparable base. An additional problem is that international agencies also employ different definitions of manufactures when compiling trade statistics. For some countries these definitional changes produce major differences in the value and share of manufactures exports and imports.This study attempts to assess the analytical implications of six alternative definitions by comparing results when each is used to tabulate the 'manufactures' exports of 72 developing countries. The results show that the different definitions result in a discrepancy of $60 billion in developing countries manufactures exports. Sensitivity tests show that five or six products are responsible for the major discrepancies, with the key item being refined petroleum (SITC 332). These items are included in the UNIDO (trade) and most agencies output definitions, but are excluded from the trade definition used by UNCTAD, World Bank, and GATT.The influence of the alternative definitions on some established country classifications, including UNCTAD's 'major exporters of manufactures', are examined. The results show that this country classification is out of date due to major shifts in the relative importance of individual exporters in the 1980s. However, even with the most recent trade statistics there would be important differences in 'major' or 'fast growing' exporters under alternative definitions of manufactured goods.

A belief held by many government officials & development economists is that sizeable & irregular commodity price fluctuations have important detrimental effects on both exporting & importing countries. Given the nature of these adverse effects, attempts have been made to negotiate international price stabilization agreements under which some central authority would make market interventions to offset the random price fluctuations. However, it is argued that the utility of such agreements should be reexamined due to the effects of floating exchange rates. Empirical evidence from UN & International Monetary Fund statistics for 30 developing countries between 1973 & 1983 is presented which shows that recent exchange rate variability has had at least as much of a destabilizing influence on commodity export earnings as have fluctuating prices, & that the effects are born unevenly by exporters of the same commodity due to their association with different currency blocks. When examined from the viewpoint of commodity importers, the price & exchange rate effects are also found to be very different for individual countries. 4 Tables, 1 Appendix, 21 References. Modified HA