This paper explores the 2008-2009 Global Trade Collapse to estimate the effects of a credit supply shock on exporters\' investments decisions. Using a Brazilian firm-level dataset compiled by the Brazilian Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the period 2007-2013, I pair up export-intensive firms with their domestically-oriented counterparts to, subsequently, calculate the differences in terms of sensitivity of investment to cash flow between the two groups over the years. After controlling for the effect of international falling demand, my study reveals that exporters are more severely constrained than their peers in the control group only in 2009, when the supply of credit instruments to finance international trade shrank. Given their high need of external financing to support exporting activities and the volatility of the cost of trade finance, usually priced against 3-month Libor, my results are in line with expected. A number of robustness and placebo tests confirm the validity of the findings. / Este artigo explora o colapso do comércio global em 2008-2009 no intuito de estimar os efeitos de um choque de oferta de crédito nas decisões de investimento das empresas exportadoras. Utilizando dados em painel de empresas brasileiras no período 2007-2013, compilados pela pela Receita Federal do Brasil (RFB), é feito pareamento entre empresas exportadoras e as focadas no mercado interno e, em seguida, calculadas as diferenças na sensibilidade do investimento ao fluxo de caixa entre os dois grupos ao longo dos anos. Depois de controlar o efeito da queda da demanda internacional, meu estudo revela que as exportadoras ficaram mais restritas a crédito que suas similares do grupo de controle somente no ano de 2009, quando a oferta de instrumentos de crédito para o setor encolheu. Dada a alta necessidade de financiamento externo para apoiar as atividades de exportação e a volatilidade do custo dos instrumentos de crédito destinados a estas, geralmente precificados em relação à Libor de 3 meses, os resultados obtidos estão em linha com o esperado. Uma série de testes de robustez e placebo são realizados para confirmar a validade das inferências.

In this paper we examine the extent of international trade synchronization during periods of international trade collapses and US recessions. Using dynamic correlations based on monthly trade data for the G7 economies over the period 1961-2011, our results suggest rather idiosyncratic patterns of international trade synchronization during collapses of international trade and US recessions. During the great recession of 2007-2009, however, international trade experienced the most sudden, severe and globally synchronized collapse. (author's abstract)

In this paper we examine the extent of international trade synchronization during periods of international trade collapses and US recessions. Using dynamic correlations based on monthly trade data for the G7 economies over the period 1961-2011, our results suggest rather idiosyncratic patterns of international trade synchronization during collapses of international trade and US recessions. During the great recession of 2007-2009, however, international trade experienced the most sudden, severe and globally synchronized collapse. (author's abstract)

In this study we provide novel results on the extent of international trade synchronization during periods of trade collapses and US recessions. Based on monthly data for the G7 economies over the period 1961-2011, our results suggest rather idiosyncratic patterns of international trade synchronization during trade collapses and US recessions. During the great recession of 2007-2009, however, international trade experienced the most sudden, severe and globally synchronized collapse. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Cette thèse relève du commerce international, des politiques monétaires et de macroéconomie internationale. Le premier chapitre étudie les différentes caractéristiques des différents régimes de change fixe et évalue les effets de chacune de ces caractéristiques sur le commerce international. Il apparaît que la transparence des prix et les coûts de transaction liés au changement de monnaie n’ont pas d’effet significatif sur le commerce, seule la crédibilité du régime de change fixe (liée à l’absence de possibilité de dévaluation) augmente significativement le commerce. Cela explique pourquoi seule l’union monétaire augmente le commerce entre ses membres dès les premières années du régime de change. Le second chapitre s’intéresse aux effets de l’euro sur le commerce pendant la crise financière de 2008-2009. Il apparaît que l’euro amortit la chute du commerce observée partout dans le monde, grâce à l’absence de volatilité du taux de change entre ses membres. Le troisième chapitre présente un modèle théorique permettant d’étudier la transmission des chocs dans une économie spécialisée verticalement, et propose une politique monétaire optimale pour stabiliser l’économie. Le modèle promeut des politiques monétaires symétriques entre les deux pays partageant un mode de production basé sur les chaînes globales de valeur. / This thesis studies international trade, monetary policy and international macroeconomics. Chapter 1 examines the different characteristics of different fixed exchange rate regimes and assesses the effects of each of these characteristics on international trade. It appears that price transparency and transaction costs linked to the currency changes do not have a significant effect on trade; only the credibility of the fixed exchange rate regime (due to the absence of devaluation possibilities) increases trade significantly. This explains why only monetary union increases trade between its members from the first years of the exchange rate regime. Chapter 2 looks at the effects of the euro on trade during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.It seems that the euro amortized the trade drop observed throughout the world, owing to the absence of exchange rate volatility among its members. Chapter 3 presents a theoretical model to study the transmission of shocks in a vertically specialized economy, and proposes an optimal monetary policy to stabilize the economy. The model promotes symmetrical monetary policies between the two countries sharing a production mode based on global value chains.

This dissertation is a collection of essays on challenges in international trade and international finance, which apply econometric methods to diverse data sets and relate them to economic policy questions. In times of crises, the question, whether individual countries have the ability to pursue idiosyncratic monetary policy, is important. The degree of integration and comovement between financial markets, for instance, is critical to better assess the real threat facing a country in a crisis. Also, from a macroeconomic modeling perspective, there has recently been a renewed interest in the cyclical and long-run comovement of interest rates. Hence, in a first essay, we reinvestigate the long- and short-run comovements in the G7-countries by conducting tests for cointegration, common serial correlation and codependence with nominal and real interest rates. Overall, we only find little evidence of comovements: common trends are occasionally observed, but the majority of interest rates are not cointegrated. Although some evidence for codependence of higher order can be found in the pre-Euro area sample, common cycles appear to exist only in rare cases. We argue that some earlier, more positive findings in the literature are difficult to reconcile due to differing assumptions about the underlying stochastic properties of interest rates. Hence, we conclude that they cannot be generalized for all interest rates, time periods, and reasonable alternative estimation procedures. This finding indicates that scope for individual countries to pursue stabilization policy does still exist in a globalized world. Emerging economies, in general, are much more exposed and vulnerable to crises than industrialized countries. Accordingly, stabilization policy is especially important in these countries and the selection of the best monetary regime is essential. This is why, in a second essay, we contrast two different views in the debate on official dollarization: the Mundell (1961) framework of optimum currency areas and a model on boom-bust cycles by Schneider and Tornell (2004), who take account of credit market imperfections prevalent in middle income countries. We highlight the strikingly different role of the exchange rate in the two models. While in the Mundell framework the exchange rate is expected to smooth the business cycle, the second model predicts the exchange rate to play an amplifying role. We empirically evaluate both models for eight highly dollarized Central American economies. We document the existence of credit market imperfections and find that shocks from the exchange rate indeed amplify business cycles in these countries. Using a new method proposed by Cubadda (1999 and 2007), we furthermore test for cyclical comovement and reject the hypothesis that the selected countries form an optimum currency area with the United States according to the Mundell definition. In the context of the recent global crisis, globalization and vertical integration in particular were often blamed for being the cause for the severe trade crisis. For that reason, in the essay that contributes to the trade literature, we analyze the role of international supply chains in explaining the long-run trade elasticity and its short-term volatility in the context of the recent trade collapse. We adopt an empirical strategy based on two steps: first, stylized facts on long- and short-term trade elasticity are derived from exploratory analysis and formal modeling on a large and diversified sample of countries. Then, we derive observations of interrelated input-output matrices for a demonstrative sub-set of countries. We find evidence for two supply chain related factors to explain the overshooting of trade elasticity during the 2008-2009 trade collapse: the composition and the bullwhip effect. However, evidence for a magnification effect could not be found. Overall, we do not accept the hypothesis that international supply chains explain all by themselves the changes in trade-income elasticity.