Asia’s Role in the New United States Export Economy
31 Pages Posted: 20 Apr 2011
Date Written: February 1, 2011
Abstract
The global economic crisis sent world trade volume and world production into retreat and threatened a second Great Depression. There has emerged a consensus that global imbalances – fundamentally reflected in the over-reliance upon the United States (US) consumer market – that built up over the first decade of the 21st century are no longer sustainable. Deficit regions led by the US will have to increase net exports in real terms in order to restore living standards and employment. Surplus regions, Asia, in particular, will have to rely more upon domestic demand and will have a substantial role to play as growth centers for net imports from the rest of the world. This paper examines the composition and prospects for growth of US net exports to the world and to developing Asia. We find that much of the apparent shift in export product shares was a result of the worldwide collapse in demand for high-technology products particularly new aircraft and information technology products. Nonetheless, India, ASEAN-10, and the newly industrialized economies are destinations for US high-technology products to an even greater extent than for the world as a whole. In contrast, the People’s Republic of China tends to import a lower portion of high-technology products but a larger share of agriculture-related and raw materials and energy products than the world as a whole.
Keywords: Global Economic Crisis, International Trade, US Trade, Real Net Exports, Rebalancing Asia’s Growth, Global Imbalances, Working Paper 250
JEL Classification: F1, F2, L6
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation