O Rourke on the trade collapses
"Two
Great Trade Collapses: The Interwar Period & Great Recession Compared"
CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP12286
In this
paper, I offer some preliminary comparisons between the trade collapses of the
Great Depression and Great Recession. The commodity composition of the two trade
collapses was quite similar, but the latter collapse was much sharper due to
the spread of manufacturing across the globe during the intervening period. The
increasing importance of manufacturing also meant that the trade collapse was
more geographically balanced in the later episode. Protectionism was much more
severe during the 1930s than after 2008, and in the UK case at least helped to
skew the direction of trade away from multilateralism and towards Empire. This
had dangerous political consequences.
CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP12286
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