East Asian Exports in the Global Economic Crisis: The Decoupling Fallacy and Post-crisis Policy Challenges

This paper examines the export experience of East Asian economies in the aftermaths of the global financial crisis against the backdrop of pre-crisis trade patterns. The analysis is motivated by the ‘decoupling’ thesis, the notion that the East Asian region has become a self-contained economic entity with potential for maintaining its own growth dynamism independent of the economic outlook for the traditional developed market economies. The findings suggests that the East Asian trade integration story that underpinned the decoupling thesis is simply a statistical artifact and that there is little room for the East Asian countries for an integrated policy response that marks a clear departure from the pre-crisis policy stance favoring export-oriented growth.