Diversification through Trade

NBER Working Paper No. 21498

Issued in August 2015

NBER Program(s):Economic Fluctuations and Growth, International Finance and Macroeconomics, International Trade and Investment



A widely held view is that openness to international trade leads to higher GDP volatility, as trade increases specialization and hence exposure to sector-specific shocks. We revisit the common wisdom and argue that when country-wide shocks are important, openness to international trade can lower GDP volatility by reducing exposure to domestic shocks and allowing countries to diversify the sources of demand and supply across countries. Using a quantitative model of trade, we assess the importance of the two mechanisms (sectoral specialization and cross-country diversification) and provide a new answer to the question of whether and how international trade affects economic volatility.

Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w21498

Published: Francesco Caselli & Miklós Koren & Milan Lisicky & Silvana Tenreyro, 2020. "Diversification Through Trade*," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol 135(1), pages 449-502. citation courtesy of

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