The Great Trade Collapse

Rudolfs Bems, Robert Johnson and Kei-Mu Yi

Annual Review of Economics, 2013, vol. 5, issue 1, 375-400

Abstract: We survey recent literature on the causes of the collapse in international trade during the 2008–2009 global recession. We argue that the evidence points to the collapse in aggregate expenditure, concentrated on trade-intensive durable goods, as the main driver of the trade collapse. Inventory adjustment likely amplified the impact of these expenditure changes on trade. In addition, shocks to credit supply constrained export supply, further exacerbating the decline in trade. Most evidence suggests that changes in trade policy did not play a large role. We conclude that one benefit of the trade collapse is that it has stimulated research in neglected areas at the intersection of trade and macroeconomics.

Keywords: Great Recession; trade finance; trade policy; import demand; world trade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F1 F4 F6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (104)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-economics-082912-110201 (application/pdf)
Full text downloads are only available to subscribers. Visit the abstract page for more information.

Related works:
Working Paper: The Great Trade Collapse (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:anr:reveco:v:5:y:2013:p:375-400

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.annualreviews.org/action/ecommerce

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Annual Review of Economics from Annual Reviews Annual Reviews 4139 El Camino Way Palo Alto, CA 94306, USA.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by http://www.annualreviews.org ().