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Recent research shows that employment in Mexico's offshoring maquiladora industries is twice as volatile as employment in their U.S. industry counterparts. The analyses in this paper use data from Mexico's social security records and U.S. customs between the first quarter of 2007 and the last quarter of 2009 to identify four channels through which economic shocks emanating from the United States were amplified when transmitted into Mexico's offshoring labor market of Northern Mexico. First, employment and imports within industries are complements, which is consistent with imports being used as inputs for the assembly of exportable goods within industries. That is, when imports fell during the crisis, employment in Mexico was reduced rather than protected by the fall of imports. Second, contrary to other studies, employment is more responsive than wages to trade shocks. Third, fluctuations in Mexico-U.S. trade were associated with changes in the composition of employment, with the skill level of workers rising during downturns and falling during upswings. This implies that the correlation between average wages and trade shocks is partly driven by labor-force compositional effects, which may obscure individual-worker wage flexibility. Fourth, trade shocks affecting related industries (industries linked by employment flows affect employment at least as much as own-industry trade shocks, thus amplifying employment volatility through the propagation of shocks across industries within Northern Mexico. Furthermore, the data suggest that the observed fluctuations in U.S.-Mexico trade at the onset of the Great Recession in the U.S. were not associated with pre-existing employment trends in Northern Mexico.

Adjustment costs --- Economic Theory & Research --- Free Trade --- International Economics & Trade --- Labor market dynamics --- Labor Markets --- Labor Policies --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Poverty Reduction --- Trade Policy --- Trade shocks

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East Asia has experienced a dramatic decrease in output growth volatility over the past 20 years. This is good news, as output growth volatility affects poor households because of coping strategies that have long-term, harmful consequences, and the overall economy through its negative impact on economic growth. This paper investigates the factors behind this long decline in volatility, and derives lessons about ways to mitigate renewed upward pressure in face of the financial crisis. The authors show that if, on the one hand, high trade openness has sustained economic growth in the past several decades, on the other hand, it has made countries more vulnerable to external fluctuations. Although less frequent terms of trade shocks and more stable growth rates of trading partners have helped to reduce volatility in the past, the same external factors are now putting renewed pressure on volatility. The way forward seems therefore to be to counterbalance the external upward pressure on volatility by improving domestic factors. Elements under domestic control that can help countries deal with high volatility include more accountable institutions, better regulated financial markets, and more stable fiscal and monetary policies.

Business cycle --- Capita growth --- Crisis volatility --- Economic Conditions and Volatility --- Economic growth --- Economic outlook --- Economic performance --- Emerging Markets --- Financial markets --- Fluctuations --- Growth rate --- Growth rates --- Growth volatility --- High trade openness --- Income --- Low-income countries --- Macroeconomic volatility --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Monetary policies --- Private Sector Development --- Recessions --- Standard deviation --- Trade shocks --- World economy

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This paper analyzes the drivers and consequences of sudden stops of capital flows. It focuses on the impact of external vulnerability on the depth and length of sudden stop crises. The authors analyze 43 developing and developed countries between 1993 and 2006. They find evidence that external vulnerability not only significantly impacts the probability of a sudden stop crisis, but also prolongs the time it takes for growth to revert to its long-term trend once a sudden stop occurs. Interestingly, external vulnerability does not significantly impact the size of the instantaneous output effect in case of a sudden stop but prompts a cumulative output effect through significantly diminishing the speed of adjustment of output to its trend. This finding implies that countries financing a large part of their absorption externally do not suffer more ferocious output losses in a sudden stop crisis, but take longer to adapt afterward and are hence expected to suffer more protracted crises periods. Compared with previous literature, this paper makes three contributions: (i) it extends the country and time coverage relative to datasets that have previously been used to analyze related topics; (ii) it specifically accounts for time-series autocorrelation; and (iii) it provides an analysis of the adjustment path of economic growth after a sudden stop.

Adjustment dynamics --- Adjustment path --- Annual growth --- Capital flows --- Currencies and Exchange Rates --- Debt Markets --- Descriptive statistics --- Economic Growth --- Economic growth --- Economic policy --- Economic Theory and Research --- Emerging Markets --- Equilibrium --- Exchange rate fluctuations --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial crisis --- Growth performance --- Growth rate --- Growth rates --- Inequality --- International financial markets --- Investment and Investment Climate --- Macroeconomic Management --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Poverty Reduction --- Poverty reduction --- Private Sector Development --- Pro-Poor Growth --- Real exchange rate --- Robustness checks --- Speed of adjustment --- Time horizon --- Trade shocks

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The authors examine empirically how domestic structural characteristics related to openness and product- and factor-market flexibility influence the impact that terms-of-trade shocks can have on aggregate output. For this purpose, they apply an econometric methodology based on semi-structural vector auto-regressions to a panel of 90 countries with annual observations for the period 1974-2000. Using this methodology, the authors isolate and standardize the shocks, estimate their impact on GDP, and examine how this impact depends on the domestic conditions outlined above. They find that larger trade openness magnifies the output impact of external shocks, particularly the negative ones, while improvements in labor market flexibility and financial openness reduce their impact. Domestic financial depth has a more nuanced role in stabilizing the economy. It helps reduce the impact of external shocks particularly in environments of high exposure-that is, when trade and financial openness are high, firm entry is unrestricted, and labor markets are rigid.

Aggregate Output --- Business Cycle --- Currencies and Exchange Rates --- Debt Markets --- Developing Countries --- Economic Conditions and Volatility --- Economic Fluctuations --- Economic Growth --- Economic Theory and Research --- Emerging Markets --- Exchange Rate --- External Shocks --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Depth --- Foreign Exchange --- Free Trade --- Growth --- Inequality --- International Economics & Trade --- Labor Market --- Labor Markets --- Macroeconomic Management --- Macroeconomic Policy --- Macroeconomic Stability --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Output Volatility --- Policy Research --- Poverty Reduction --- Private Sector Development --- Pro-Poor Growth --- Relative Importance --- Significant Impact --- Social Protections and Labor --- Structural Characteristics --- Trade Openness --- Trade Shocks