The Great Trade Collapse is a new ebook published today by VoxEU/CEPR, ahead of Monday's ministerial meeting at the WTO. It's edited by the wonderful Richard Baldwin, so although I've not read more than the introductory chapter yet, I'm confident it will be full of authoritative wisdom. The title refers of course to the fact that the drop in world trade volumes in this recession has topped even the decline in the Great Depression. As the intro puts it: “World trade experienced a sudden, severe and synchronised collapse in
late 2008 – the sharpest in recorded history and deepest since WWII.”

However, the detail is even more interesting than the headline. The volume analyses the way the creation of global supply chains has led to the most synchronous collapse in different categories of trade ever recorded and points the way towards understanding the implications of the extraordinary international division of labour in the globalization of the late 1980s and 1990s. The punchline is that domestic incomes no longer have their old decisive role in explaining trade patterns. What's more, there's no evidence at all that the recession is leading to any retreat from the global pattern of production. We are truly globalized.

The download is free – worth it for the charts in the intro alone, and clearly stuffed with really interesting research. Almost certainly more worthwhile than the WTO ministerial next week will be.