Abstract

Before the recent economic crisis international trade in goods and services, both for imports and exports, showed a steady increase throughout the OECD area, with the OECD total increasing (on average) by between5 and 6 percentage points for both measures between2004 and 2008, with imports slightly outpacing exports. In 2009 however, in the midst of the recent crisis, the ratio for both imports and exports in GDP fell markedly, wiping out nearly all of the increases recorded after2004. The GDP ratio for exports in 2009 at 24.5%, was significantly below the one for 2008 (27.7%). This pattern was mirrored by the import-to-GDP ratio for the OECD total, which decreased on average from 29.2% in2008 to 24.9% in 2009. In 2010, the shares of both imports and exports regained partly their previous losses. These increases continued in 2011, for almost all countries for which data are available. A majority of these countries has now shares of imports and exports that are larger than the pre-crisis levels. Looking at the balance of exports and imports, Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland and Ireland show large and consistent surpluses of more than 10% of GDP, whereas the Netherlands, Hungary, Iceland, Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic have surpluses of more than 5%. On the other hand Turkey, Greece, the United States, France and the United Kingdom have persistent deficits of more than 2% of GDP.