TY  - JOUR
AU  - Amiti,Mary
AU  - Weinstein,David E.
TI  - Exports and Financial Shocks
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15556
PY  - 2009
Y2  - December 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15556
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15556.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Mary Amiti
International Research
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
33 Liberty St
New York, NY 10045-0001
E-Mail: Mary.Amiti@ny.frb.org

David Weinstein
Columbia University, Department of Economics
420 W. 118th Street
MC 3308
New York, NY  10027
Tel: 212/854-6880
Fax: 212/854-8059
E-Mail: dew35@columbia.edu
AB  - A striking feature of many financial crises is the collapse of exports relative to output. In the 2008 financial crisis, real world exports plunged 17 percent while GDP fell 5 percent. This paper examines whether deteriorations in bank health can help explain the large drops in exports relative to output in the recent crisis. Our paper is the first to establish a causal link between the health of banks providing trade finance and growth in a firm’s exports relative to its domestic sales. We overcome measurement and endogeneity issues by using a unique data set, covering the Japanese financial crises from 1990 through 2010, which enables us to match exporters with the main bank that provides them with trade finance. Our point estimates are economically and statistically significant, suggesting that the health of financial institutions is an important determinant of firm-level exports during crises.
ER  -