Arbeitspapier

East Asia in World Trade: The Decoupling Fallacy, Crisis, and Policy Challenges

This paper examines the export experience of China and other East Asian economies in the aftermaths of the global financial crisis against the backdrop of pre-crisis trade patterns. The analysis is motivated by the ‘decoupling' thesis, which was a popular theme in the Asian policy circles in the lead-up to the onset of the recent financial crisis, and aims to probe three key issues: Was the East Asian trade integration story that underpinned the decoupling thesis simply a statistical artifact or the massive export contraction caused by an overreaction of traders to the global economic crisis and/or by the drying up of trade credit, which overpowered the cushion provided by intra-regional trade? What are the new policy challenges faced by the East Asian economies? Is there room for an integrated policy response that marks a clear departure from the pre-crisis policy stance favoring export-oriented growth? The findings caution against a possible policy backlash against openness to foreign trade arising from the new-found enthusiasm for rebalancing growth, and make a strong case for a long-term commitment to non-discriminatory multilateral and unilateral trade liberalization.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: FIW Working Paper ; No. 52

Classification
Wirtschaft
Economic Integration
Multinational Firms; International Business
Economywide Country Studies: Asia including Middle East
Subject
global financial crisis
global production sharing
production networks
China

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Athukorala, Prema-chandra
Kohpaiboon, Archanun
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
FIW - Research Centre International Economics
(where)
Vienna
(when)
2010

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET

Data provider

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Athukorala, Prema-chandra
  • Kohpaiboon, Archanun
  • FIW - Research Centre International Economics

Time of origin

  • 2010

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