This paper reviews some of the research on the causes of the financial crisis of 2008–09, highlights the key events that triggered a financial panic in September 2008, and summarizes the key policy actions that the United States has taken to ameliorate the crisis. We document the characteristics and growth of the sub-prime mortgage market, and the distorted incentives and flawed regulatory structure surrounding the secondary market for mortgage-backed securities. We also assess the role for macroeconomic determinants of the crisis that serve to explain the bubble in U.S. asset prices, most notably low global interest rates attributed to either loose monetary policy or excess global saving. Although low global interest rates may have contributed to the boom in housing markets and speculative excesses, we believe that the financial innovations and microeconomic distortions played a more fundamental role. Finally, a recovery marked by higher private saving, weak domestic investment, and a large public deficit appears to be unsustainable. Ultimately, the U.S. economy will need to shift about 3 percent of GDP from domestic consumption to the export sector. This will pose some serious challenges to Asian economies that have come to rely on exports to the U.S. market.

This paper examines U.S. goods trade with China, focusing on the performance of exports. Throughout the analysis, we explore whether U.S. trade is unusual by contrasting it with trade from Japan and the EU-15. 1 The issue is examined from three perspectives: the commodity composition of exports, the role of multinational corporations (MNCs), and the determinants of trade as specified in a formal “gravity model.” As an initial point of departure, we show that the commodity composition of U.S. exports to China is similar to the pattern of exports to the world as a whole, and that the operations of U.S. MNCs have only minor implications for trade with China. Consequently, we emphasize the estimation of a set of “gravity equations” that explore the role of market size and distance from the United States. Distance exerts a surprisingly large effect on trade. Finally, although exports to China may be a small share of U.S. GDP, they are relatively substantial compared to U.S. exports to other countries. In other words, the measure of U.S. trade performance in China is distorted by the low level of its exports to all countries. We present evidence that the United States underperforms as an exporter relative to a peer group of high-income European countries and Japan.