Did Export Diversification Soften the Impact of the Global Financial Crisis?

Author/Editor:

Rafael Romeu ; Nelson Camanho da Costa Neto

Publication Date:

May 1, 2011

Electronic Access:

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Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary:

This study considers the role of export diversification in determining trade outcomes during the global financial crisis. The impact of export diversification (or concentration) is measured by assessing three different dimensions of specialization. First, concentration by geographic destination is considered; that is, whether the bulk of exports from a country go to many or few trading partners. Second, industry/sectoral concentration is considered; that is, whether a country’s exports are scattered across many industries and sectors, or concentrated in just a few. Third, product concentration is considered; that is, whether countries produce many products within their export sectors or just a few. The workhorse gravity trade model is adapted with trade diversification as an additional trade cost, and the model solution is empirically tested on a dataset containing over 500 thousand observations for Latin America. Industry and product concentration are found to significantly affect the resilience of Latin American countries’ trade during the global financial crisis - increasing the diversity of both export sectors and export products within sectors by one standard deviation reduces the quarterly decline in exports by approximately 4.7 percent. Diversifying exports across many different trading partners is not found to significantly affect outcomes.

Series:

Working Paper No. 2011/099

Subject:

English

Publication Date:

May 1, 2011

ISBN/ISSN:

9781455254309/1018-5941

Stock No:

WPIEA2011099

Pages:

23

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