TY  - UNPD
A1  - Kilian, Lutz
A1  - Nomikos, Nikos K.
A1  - Zhou, Xiaoqing
T1  - Container trade and the U.S. recovery
T2  - Center for Financial Studies (Frankfurt am Main): CFS working paper series ; No. 659
N2  - Since the 1970s, exports and imports of manufactured goods have been the engine of international trade and much of that trade relies on container shipping. This paper introduces a new monthly index of the volume of container trade to and from North America. Incorporating this index into a structural macroeconomic VAR model facilitates the identification of shocks to domestic U.S. demand as well as foreign demand for U.S. manufactured goods. We show that, unlike in the Great Recession, the primary determinant of the U.S. economic contraction in early 2020 was a sharp drop in domestic demand. Although detrended data for personal consumption expenditures and manufacturing output suggest that the U.S. economy has recovered to near 90% of pre-pandemic levels as of March 2021, our structural VAR model shows that the component of manufacturing output driven by domestic demand had only recovered to 59% of pre-pandemic levels and that of real personal consumption only to 76%. The difference is mainly accounted for by unexpected reductions in frictions in the container shipping market.
T3  - CFS working paper series - 659 
KW  - Merchandise trade
KW  - container
KW  - shipping
KW  - manufacturing
KW  - consumption
KW  - COVID-19
KW  - supply chain
KW  - recession
KW  - recovery
KW  - globalization
Y1  - 2021
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/57585
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-575851
UR  - https://ssrn.com/abstract=3963305
IS  - This version: October 13, 2021
PB  - Center for Financial Studies
CY  - Frankfurt, M.
ER  -