TY  - JOUR
AU  - Haddad,Mona
AU  - Harrison,Ann
AU  - Hausman,Catherine
TI  - Decomposing the Great Trade Collapse: Products, Prices, and Quantities in the 2008-2009 Crisis
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 16253
PY  - 2010
Y2  - August 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16253
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16253.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Mona Haddad, Ms.
World Bank
1818 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20433
E-Mail: mhaddad@worldbank.org

Ann Harrison
The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
2016 Steinberg Hall-Dietrich Hall
3620 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6370
Tel: 215 746 3132
E-Mail: annh@wharton.upenn.edu

Catherine Hausman
Department of Agricultural
and Resource Econonmics
University of California, Berkeley
210 Giannini Hall
Berkeley, California 94720
E-Mail: calmirall@berkeley.edu
AB  - We identify a new set of stylized facts on the 2008-2009 trade collapse that we hope can be used to shed light on the importance of demand and supply-side factors in explaining the fall in trade.  In particular, we decompose the fall in international trade into product entry and exit, price changes, and quantity changes for imports by Brazil, the European Union, Indonesia, and the United States. When we aggregate across all products, most of the countries analyzed experienced a decline in new products, a rise in product exit, and falls in quantity for product lines that continued to be traded. The evidence suggests that the intensive rather than extensive margin mattered the most, consistent with studies of other countries and previous recessionary periods.  On average, quantities declined and prices fell.  However, these average effects mask enormous differences across different products.  Price declines were driven primarily by commodities.  Within manufacturing, while most quantity changes were negative, in most cases price changes moved in the opposite direction.  Consequently, within manufacturing, there is some evidence consistent with the hypothesis that supply side frictions played a role.    For the United States, price increases were most significant in sectors which are typically credit constrained.
ER  -