Taking Stock of Trade Protectionism Since 2008

Mohini Datt (), Bernard Hoekman and Mariem Malouche ()
Additional contact information
Mohini Datt: World Bank
Mariem Malouche: World Bank

World Bank - Economic Premise, 2011, issue 72, 1-9

Abstract: Following the onset of the financial crisis in September 2008 and the subsequent “Great Trade Collapse” (Baldwin 2009), many countries actively used trade policy instruments as part of their response to the global recession. Governments pursued a mix of trade liberalization, trade promotion, and trade restrictions. The choice of trade policy has varied, with limited use of tariff hikes or antidumping and safeguard actions. Sector-specific support to industries dominated initial responses to the crisis, and there has been increasing resort to nontariff measures. Recent research suggests that vertical specialization—the growth in global supply chains—has played a significant role in limiting the use of traditional protectionist instruments. Pressures on governments to support domestic economic activity may increase, given current gloomy economic prospects and more binding macroeconomic policy constraints, and the number of protectionist measures has recently risen. Open trade cannot be taken for granted, thus the need for monitoring persists.

Keywords: trade; protectionism; financial crisis; trade policy; recession; trade liberalization; trade promotion; trade restrictions; WTO; Doha (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F1 F10 F13 F4 O19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPREMNET/Resources/EP72.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Taking Stock of Trade Protectionism Since 2008 (2011)
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:wbk:prmecp:ep72

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in World Bank - Economic Premise from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael Jelenic ().