Search Results
Discussion Paper
Is China Really Growing at 5 Percent?
Chinese authorities recently announced a growth target of "around 5 percent" for 2025, the same as their 2024 target. Five percent is about half the pace of growth that China sustained from the 1980s to the early 2010s, but it is nonetheless quite high for an economy flirting with deflation and mired in a years-long property bust.
Discussion Paper
Trade-offs of Higher U.S. Tariffs: GDP, Revenues, and the Trade Deficit
In recent years, protectionist trade policies have gained momentum globally, reversing decades of increasing globalization. This shift is driven by growing skepticism about the benefits of free trade, national security concerns, geopolitical considerations, and efforts to enhance economic resilience in the wake of COVID-19.
Discussion Paper
The Global Trade Effects of the AI Infrastructure Boom
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a key driver of the global economic outlook, underscored by the unprecedented scale of announced investment commitments aimed at expanding AI-related infrastructure. The AI boom is also increasingly influencing international trade by boosting demand for critical inputs and intermediate goods needed to build data centers.
Discussion Paper
China’s Trade Dominance and the Role of Industrial Policies
China's trade surplus surged to a record $1.2 trillion in 2025, exceeding 6% of its GDP, marking a new milestone in its integration into, and dominance of, the global trading system. This development has attracted heightened attention from policymakers and analysts, not only because of the sheer size of the surplus, but also because of growing concerns about the distribution of global manufacturing, the persistence of global external imbalances, and the role of industrial policy interventions in shaping trade outcomes.
Discussion Paper
China shock 2.0: How China’s ongoing export surge differs from the early 2000s
China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 marked the beginning of one of the most consequential episodes in the history of global trade. The subsequent surge in Chinese exports–often referred to as the "China Shock"–has been widely associated with large adjustments in production patterns, labor markets, and trade balances across the global economy (Autor et al. 2016; Pierce and Schott 2016).
Discussion Paper
Mexico in U.S. Supply Chains: Lessons from 2018-19 Tariffs
In the wake of the 2018–19 U.S.-China tariff hikes, there has been a significant shift in U.S. supply chains, with Mexico emerging as the largest supplier of U.S. imports, surpassing China. This shift has been attributed in part to Mexico gaining a cost advantage over China following the U.S tariffs on China.
Discussion Paper
Vietnam's Export Boom to the U.S.: The Role of Chinese Firms
In recent years, Vietnam has attracted considerable attention as a potential major beneficiary of the 2018-19 U.S.-China tariff increases, reflecting substantial trade diversion as exports shifted away from China (Alfaro and Chor, 2023; Freund et al., 2024). As shown in the left panel of Figure 1, U.S. imports from China declined sharply after the 2018-19 tariffs, while imports from Vietnam tripled by 2025.
Discussion Paper
Revisiting China's Current Account: Evidence from Recent Revisions
Global imbalances have returned to the forefront of policy debates, with China at the center of those discussions. China's trade surplus has reached exceptionally large levels, raising concerns about its implications for the rest of the world (de Soyres et al. 2026).
Discussion Paper
Long-Run Effects on Chinese GDP from U.S.-China Tariff Hikes
In this Note, we employ a particular model of trade policy effects following Caliendo and Parro (2015) that focuses on the role of tariffs in spurring adverse resource reallocations.
Discussion Paper
The Effect of US-China Tariff Hikes: Differences in Demand Composition Matter
In this note, we estimate the economic effects of the increases in tariffs between China and the USA since the beginning of 2018, taking into account the investment channel. As of the bilateral Phase One agreement in early 2020, the United States has raised tariffs on about $335 billion of Chinese goods and China has raised tariffs on about $120 billion of US goods.