TY  - JOUR
AU  - Irwin, Douglas A
AU  - O'Rourke, Kevin H
TI  - Coping with Shocks and Shifts: The Multilateral Trading System in Historical Perspective
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17598
PY  - 2011
Y2  - November 2011
DO  - 10.3386/w17598
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17598
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17598.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Douglas A. Irwin
Department of Economics
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH  03755
Tel: 603/646-2942
Fax: 603/646-2122
E-Mail: douglas.irwin@dartmouth.edu

Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke
NYU Abu Dhabi, Saadiyat Campus
Social Science (A5), 1193
P.O. Box 129188
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates
Tel: +971 2 628 7674
E-Mail: kevin.orourke@nyu.edu
M1  - published as Douglas A. Irwin, Kevin H. O'Rourke. "Coping with Shocks and Shifts: The Multilateral Trading System in Historical Perspective," in Robert C. Feenstra and Alan M. Taylor, editors, "Globalization in an Age of Crisis: Multilateral Economic Cooperation in the Twenty-First Century" University of Chicago Press (2014)

M3  - presented at "Globalization in an Age of Crisis", September 14-16, 2011
AB  - This paper provides a historical look at how the multilateral trading system has coped with the challenge of shocks and shifts.  By shocks we mean sudden jolts to the world economy in the form of financial crises and deep recessions, or wars and political conflicts.  By shifts we mean slow-moving, long-term changes in comparative advantage or shifts in the geopolitical equilibrium that force economies to undergo disruptive and potentially painful adjustments.  We conclude that most shocks (financial crises and regional wars) have had relatively little effect on trade policy, but that shifts pose a greater challenge to the system of open, multilateral trade.
ER  -