The brutal drop in global trade during the last quarter of 2008 and the first months of 2009 has been the subject of much discussion. Some have seen this fall-off, which was considerably steeper than the accompanying decline in production, as a reversal of previous trends. The international...

1978-2008, CEPII is thirty years old! For La Lettre du CEPII, its four-page, monthly publication, it is an opportunity to look back over the thousands of pages published since its first issue.

Until recently, East Asia, the world’s most dynamic area for several decades now, had few regional institutions. However, the successive crises in the last ten years (financial crisis in 1997-1998, SRAS, tsunami, bird flu) have demonstrated the need for formal cooperation instruments. Trade...