The Volatility of International Trade Flows in the 21st Century : Whose Fault Is It Anyway?

After investment, exports and imports are the most volatile components of aggregate demand within countries. Moreover, the volatility of growth and the volatility of trade flows tend to move together; they declined from the 1990s until 2009, follow...

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Main Authors: Bennett, Federico, Lederman, Daniel, Pienknagura, Samuel, Rojas, Diego
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
en_US
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/08/26633356/volatility-international-trade-flows-21st-century-fault-anyway
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24862
id okr-10986-24862
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-248622021-04-23T14:04:27Z The Volatility of International Trade Flows in the 21st Century : Whose Fault Is It Anyway? Bennett, Federico Lederman, Daniel Pienknagura, Samuel Rojas, Diego volatility trade liberalization economic development diversification trade integration business cycle synchronization After investment, exports and imports are the most volatile components of aggregate demand within countries. Moreover, the volatility of growth and the volatility of trade flows tend to move together; they declined from the 1990s until 2009, followed by an increase since 2009. This paper explores the drivers of such movements in trade-flow volatility. The analysis decomposes trade growth into six components to study their contribution to the overall volatility of trade flows, and presents three findings. First, trade volatility is mostly explained by a factor common to all countries, country-specific factors, and changes in the gravity-related characteristics of a country's trading partners. Product composition and the identity of trading partners appear to be less important in explaining volatility. Second, the pre-2009 decline in volatility and the post-2009 increase in volatility appear to be driven by different factors. The former is mostly explained by a steady decline in the variance of country-specific factors. In contrast, the latter appears to be driven mainly by an increase in the volatility of factors common to all countries. Third, trade diversification is a likely force behind the steady decline in trade volatility driven by country-specific factors, especially in developing countries. 2016-08-10T15:06:49Z 2016-08-10T15:06:49Z 2016-08 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/08/26633356/volatility-international-trade-flows-21st-century-fault-anyway http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24862 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7781 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Latin America & Caribbean
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
en_US
topic volatility
trade liberalization
economic development
diversification
trade integration
business cycle synchronization
spellingShingle volatility
trade liberalization
economic development
diversification
trade integration
business cycle synchronization
Bennett, Federico
Lederman, Daniel
Pienknagura, Samuel
Rojas, Diego
The Volatility of International Trade Flows in the 21st Century : Whose Fault Is It Anyway?
geographic_facet Latin America & Caribbean
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7781
description After investment, exports and imports are the most volatile components of aggregate demand within countries. Moreover, the volatility of growth and the volatility of trade flows tend to move together; they declined from the 1990s until 2009, followed by an increase since 2009. This paper explores the drivers of such movements in trade-flow volatility. The analysis decomposes trade growth into six components to study their contribution to the overall volatility of trade flows, and presents three findings. First, trade volatility is mostly explained by a factor common to all countries, country-specific factors, and changes in the gravity-related characteristics of a country's trading partners. Product composition and the identity of trading partners appear to be less important in explaining volatility. Second, the pre-2009 decline in volatility and the post-2009 increase in volatility appear to be driven by different factors. The former is mostly explained by a steady decline in the variance of country-specific factors. In contrast, the latter appears to be driven mainly by an increase in the volatility of factors common to all countries. Third, trade diversification is a likely force behind the steady decline in trade volatility driven by country-specific factors, especially in developing countries.
format Working Paper
author Bennett, Federico
Lederman, Daniel
Pienknagura, Samuel
Rojas, Diego
author_facet Bennett, Federico
Lederman, Daniel
Pienknagura, Samuel
Rojas, Diego
author_sort Bennett, Federico
title The Volatility of International Trade Flows in the 21st Century : Whose Fault Is It Anyway?
title_short The Volatility of International Trade Flows in the 21st Century : Whose Fault Is It Anyway?
title_full The Volatility of International Trade Flows in the 21st Century : Whose Fault Is It Anyway?
title_fullStr The Volatility of International Trade Flows in the 21st Century : Whose Fault Is It Anyway?
title_full_unstemmed The Volatility of International Trade Flows in the 21st Century : Whose Fault Is It Anyway?
title_sort volatility of international trade flows in the 21st century : whose fault is it anyway?
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2016
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/08/26633356/volatility-international-trade-flows-21st-century-fault-anyway
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24862
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