Search Results
Discussion Paper
Assessing the Extent of Trade Fragmentation
Globalization increased steadily for decades following the end of World War II, with trade as a percentage of global GDP rising from 20 percent in the early post-war period to nearly 60 percent just before the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) (Aiyar et al., 2023). Since the GFC, however, this move toward globalization has stalled, and recent events—U.S.-China trade tensions, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine—have raised the prospect of a reversal.
Working Paper
Measuring Shortages since 1900
This paper introduces a monthly shortage index spanning 1900 to the present, constructed from 25 million newspaper articles. The index captures shortages across industry, labor, food, and energy, and spikes during economic crises and wars. We validate the index and show that it provides information beyond traditional macroeconomic indicators. Using predictive regressions, we find that shortages are associated with persistently high inflation and lower economic activity. A structural VAR model reveals that, compared to a traditional supply shock, surprise movements in shortages produce less ...