After decades of spectacular growth, in recent years international trade has slowed down its growth compared to global income growth, a phenomenon referred to as the Global Trade Slowdown. The nature of this phenomenon, whether cyclical or structural, is still a source of debate among academics and its understanding is critical in order to understand the consequences of the phenomenon, being international trade broadly considered an important channel for economic growth, poverty reduction and, moreover, an indicator of global collaboration among countries. Therefore, the focus of this research is to investigate whether the nature of the Global Trade Slowdown is long lasting and thus whether international trade has peaked. Starting from a historical perspective of the broader globalization phenomenon, this work highlights how the spread of GVCs and the integration of emerging and developing economies have been the main characterizing features and drivers of the incredible international trade growth experienced during the 1990s and the early 2000s that, however, cannot be preconceived neither as unprecedented nor irreversible. The main contributions of the research are two. First, an analysis of the different causes of the Global Trade slowdown identified and analyzed by the literature, with the double objective to assess their relative weight and place them into them into a framework that allows classifying them according to both their type of impact on trade indicators and their nature - temporary of long lasting. Even though the literature fails in finding a consensus over a quantitative relative weight of the different causes of the slowdown, its analysis suggests the nature of the Global Trade Slowdown is structural and likely long lasting. However, while some trends that have driven international trade in the past – notably the spread of GVCs – are phasing out its effect on trade-to-income elasticities, a large role is being played by several compositional trends, notably by a steady shift of global income from trade-intensive advanced economies to less-integrated ones, a trend largely untied with the hypothesis of peak trade. In addition, the literature highlights the pivotal role of China, whose current transition toward a more balanced economy is drastically reducing the weight of its trade flows relatively to its GDP. The second contribution of the research is an empirical test, through the adoption of a panel dataset, about the hypothesis of a Post-Crisis structural break of the trade-to-income relationship at country level, in order to rule out the effects of geographic compositional trend mentioned above. The test fails in providing evidence in supports of the hypothesis of a significant structural break in the trade-to-income relationship at country-level for 9 of 11 selected countries, suggesting that such a break is probably mainly limited to emerging Asian countries and, at least, partially linked to the recent developments in China.
Dopo essere rapidamente cresciuto per decenni, il commercio internazionale ha negli ultimi anni largamente rallentato la sua crescita in relazione rispetto alla crescita del reddito mondiale, un fenomeno chiamato Global Trade Slowdown. La natura del fenomeno è tuttora fonte di dibattito nonostante la sua comprensione risulti critica per capire le conseguenze del fenomeno stesso, essendo il commercio internazionale considerato un importante canale di crescita economica, riduzione della povertà e indicatore di collaborazione internazionale fra i paesi. Lo scopo di questa ricerca è di approfondire la natura del fenomeno, in maniera da poter determinare se il commercio internazionale abbia o meno raggiunto un suo fisiologico picco. Partendo da un inquadramento storico del fenomeno all’interno del più ampio processo di globalizzazione, questa ricerca evidenzia come la diffusione delle GVCs e l’integrazione dei paesi emergenti ed invia di sviluppo sia state le caratteristiche principali, nonché maggiori driver dell’incredibile crescita degli scambi commerciali avvenuta negli anni ’90 ed inizio ’00, crescita che non va né considerata senza precedenti né irreversibile. I contributi principali di questa ricerca sono due. Primo, un analisi delle differenti cause del fenomeno identificate dalla letteratura, con il duplice obbiettivo di capirne l’importanza relativa e classificarle all’interno di un framework che permetta di capirne l’impatto sugli di apertura commerciale e la loro natura, se ciclica o strutturale. Nonostante l’assenza di un consenso all’interno delle letteratura riguardo una quantificazione del peso relativo delle varie cause del rallentamento, l’analisi suggerisce che il fenomeno è di natura strutturale. Nonostante un ruolo significativo sia giocato da un drastico rallentamento dei trend che in passato hanno stimolato la crescita del commercio – come l’adozione delle GVCs – la causa più rilevante del rallentamento sono diversi trend che stanno agendo con un effetto di composizione sulle misure aggregate di apertura del commercio. Fra questi, in particolare il crescente peso nell’economia mondiale dei paesi emergenti – generalmente caratterizzati da minore apertura commerciale, come nel caso dell’India – a discapito dei paesi avanzati, generalmente più economicamente integrati – in particolare i paesi dell’Eurozona. In aggiunta, la letteratura evidenzia il ruolo particolare della Cina, la cui recente transizione verso un modello economico più bilanciato verso la domanda interna sta riducendo drasticamente l’importanza degli scambi commerciali nell’economia cinese. Il secondo contributo della ricerca è un test empirico riguardo l’ipotesi un break strutturale post-Crisi nella relazione fra commercio e reddito a livello paese, in maniera da eliminare l’effetto del precedentemente citato effetto di composizione geografica. Il test rigetta l’ipotesi di un break strutturale a livello paese in 9 degli 11 paesi selezionati, suggerendo che tale break è limitato ad una serie di paesi emergenti asiatici e almeno parzialmente legato ai recenti sviluppi in Cina.
Global trade slowdown : an analysis of its causes and nature
DE STEFANO, MARCO
2015/2016
Abstract
After decades of spectacular growth, in recent years international trade has slowed down its growth compared to global income growth, a phenomenon referred to as the Global Trade Slowdown. The nature of this phenomenon, whether cyclical or structural, is still a source of debate among academics and its understanding is critical in order to understand the consequences of the phenomenon, being international trade broadly considered an important channel for economic growth, poverty reduction and, moreover, an indicator of global collaboration among countries. Therefore, the focus of this research is to investigate whether the nature of the Global Trade Slowdown is long lasting and thus whether international trade has peaked. Starting from a historical perspective of the broader globalization phenomenon, this work highlights how the spread of GVCs and the integration of emerging and developing economies have been the main characterizing features and drivers of the incredible international trade growth experienced during the 1990s and the early 2000s that, however, cannot be preconceived neither as unprecedented nor irreversible. The main contributions of the research are two. First, an analysis of the different causes of the Global Trade slowdown identified and analyzed by the literature, with the double objective to assess their relative weight and place them into them into a framework that allows classifying them according to both their type of impact on trade indicators and their nature - temporary of long lasting. Even though the literature fails in finding a consensus over a quantitative relative weight of the different causes of the slowdown, its analysis suggests the nature of the Global Trade Slowdown is structural and likely long lasting. However, while some trends that have driven international trade in the past – notably the spread of GVCs – are phasing out its effect on trade-to-income elasticities, a large role is being played by several compositional trends, notably by a steady shift of global income from trade-intensive advanced economies to less-integrated ones, a trend largely untied with the hypothesis of peak trade. In addition, the literature highlights the pivotal role of China, whose current transition toward a more balanced economy is drastically reducing the weight of its trade flows relatively to its GDP. The second contribution of the research is an empirical test, through the adoption of a panel dataset, about the hypothesis of a Post-Crisis structural break of the trade-to-income relationship at country level, in order to rule out the effects of geographic compositional trend mentioned above. The test fails in providing evidence in supports of the hypothesis of a significant structural break in the trade-to-income relationship at country-level for 9 of 11 selected countries, suggesting that such a break is probably mainly limited to emerging Asian countries and, at least, partially linked to the recent developments in China.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/133562