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"Global trade fell 30 percent relative to GDP during the Great Recession of 2008-2009. Did this collapse result from factors impeding international transactions or did it simply reflect the greater severity of the recession in highly traded sectors? We answer this question with detailed international data, interpreted within a general-equilibrium trade model. Counterfactual simulations of the model show that a shift in spending away from manufactures, particularly durables, accounts for more than 80 percent of the drop in trade/GDP. Increased trade impediments reduced trade in some countries, but globally the impact of these changes largely cancels out"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

We develop a dynamic multicountry general equilibrium model to investigate forces acting on the global economy during the Great Recession and ensuing recovery. Our multisector framework accounts completely for countries' trade, investment, production, and GDPs in terms of different sets of shocks. Applying the model to 21 countries, we investigate the 29 percent drop in world trade in manufactures during the period 2008–2009. A shift in final spending away from tradable sectors, largely caused by declines in durables investment efficiency, accounts for most of the collapse in trade relative to GDP. Shocks to trade frictions, productivity, and demand play minor roles. (JEL E3, F1, F4)

We reconcile trade theory with plant-level export behavior, extending the Ricardian model to accommodate many countries, geographic barriers, and imperfect competition. Our model captures qualitatively basic facts about U.S. plants: (i) productivity dispersion, (ii) higher productivity among exporters, (iii) the small fraction who export, (iv) the small fraction earned from exports among exporting plants, and (v) the size advantage of exporters. Fitting the model to bilateral trade among the United States and 46 major trade partners, we examine the impact of globalization and dollar appreciation on productivity, plant entry and exit, and labor turnover in U.S. manufacturing.

The trade policies addressed in this book have far-reaching effects on the world's increasingly interdependent economies, but until now little research has been devoted to them. This volume represents the first systematic effort to analyze specific U.S. trade policies, particularly nontariff measures. It provides a better understanding of how trade policies operate, how effective they are, and what their costs and benefits are to trading nations. The contributors chart the history of U.S. trade policy since World War II, analyze industry-specific trade barriers, and discuss the effects of tariff preferences and export-promoting policies such as export credits and domestic international sales corporations (DISCs). The final section of essays examines the worldwide impact of import policies, pointing out subtleties in industry-specific policies and providing insight into the levels of protection in developing countries. The contributors blend state-of-the-art economics with language that is accessible to the business community, economists, and policymakers. Commentaries accompany each paper

How much credit can be given to entrepreneurship for the unprecedented innovation and growth of free-enterprise economies? In this book, some of the world's leading economists tackle this difficult and understudied question, and their responses shed new light on how free-market economies work--and what policies most encourage their growth. The contributors take as their starting point William J. Baumol's 2002 book The Free-Market Innovation Machine (Princeton), which argued that independent entrepreneurs are far more important to growth than economists have traditionally thought, and that an implicit partnership between such entrepreneurs and large corporations is critical to the success of market economies. The contributors include the editors and Robert M. Solow, Kenneth J. Arrow, Michael M. Weinstein, Douglass C. North, Barry R. Weingast, Ying Lowrey, Nathan Rosenberg, Melissa A. Schilling, Corey Phelps, Sylvia Nasar, Boyan Jovanovic, Peter L. Rousseau, Edward N. Wolff, Deepak Somaya, David J. Teece, Naomi R. Lamoreaux, Kenneth L. Sokoloff, Yochanan Shachmurove, Ralph E. Gomory, Jonathan Eaton, Samuel S. Kortum, Alan S. Blinder, Robert J. Shiller, Burton G. Malkiel, and Edmund S. Phelps