Paul Ho talks about how countries are connected to each other through international trade and how these connections help spread economic shocks across the globe. Ho is an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
Trade and International Economics

Learn about our research and analysis into immigration and migration, trade flows, exchange rates of money and more factors influencing the global economy.

Our supply-side explanation for trade policy reveals district and industry-level patterns of winners and losers, central to understanding the political consequences of trade and the backlash against globalization.
Kishore Gawande, Pablo M. Pinto and Santiago Pinto
Richmond Fed Research Director Kartik Athreya shares takeaways from the annual Technology-Enabled Disruption Conference, co-hosted by the Richmond, Atlanta and Dallas Feds.
Researchers covered topics including digital advertising, R&D allocation, production networks, and knowledge creation and diffusion.
John Mullin and Matthew Wells
We analyze the relationship between climate-related disasters and sovereign debt crises using a model with capital accumulation, sovereign default, and disaster risk.
How do credit default swaps (CDS) affect sovereign debt markets? Our baseline specification predicts trading frictions and an inability to short sell bonds significantly improves sovereign debt prices, but policies that restrict CDS trading have small effects.
Gaston Chaumont, Grey Gordon, Bruno Sultanum and Elliot Tobin
Economic disturbances are not confined within the country where they originate; they propagate throughout that country's trading network as both its immediate trading partners and trading partners of trading partners react.
Aubrey George
Improving such restructurings have garnered additional attention as sovereign debt has increased significantly in the past couple of years.
Kushal Patel and Horacio Sapriza
Seemingly small international trade linkages can lead to substantial spillovers across countries, helping explain global comovement in GDP growth and inflation across countries.
In this paper, we use new data on daily firm-to-firm transactions from India, coupled with a large exogenous shock that disrupted supply chains to varying degrees.
Gaurav Khanna, Nicolas Morales and Nitya Pandalai-Nayar
We study how international linkages and nominal price rigidities jointly shape the dynamics of inflation and output across multiple large economies.
In recent weeks, government debt and foreign exchange markets in the U.K. were roiled by a remarkable amount of volatility.
Tariffs, property rights and producing inputs versus buying them: These were among the topics discussed at our recent conference.
As central banks around the world tighten their monetary policies, the U.S. dollar has appreciated significantly compared to other currencies.
Hard (or large) sovereign defaults have been associated with larger negative economic responses than soft defaults.
Brandon Fuller, Grey Gordon and Pablo Guerrón-Quintana
Chang-Tai Hsieh and Tao Zha share their research on China's economy and financial system, and discuss the country's growth during the last decade as well as its recent regulation of private firms and banks. Hsieh teaches at the University of Chicago, while Zha works at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Emory University.
Columbia University economist on inflation, capital controls, and finding research topics.
The dollar has been the global currency of choice for nearly a century, but in light of recent U.S.-led financial sanctions, some wonder whether that status will endure.
The wave of sovereign defaults in the early 1980s and the string of debt crises in subsequent decades have fostered proposals involving policy interventions in sovereign debt restructurings. The global financial crisis and the recent global pandemic have further reignited this discussion among academics and policymakers.
Maximiliano Dvorkin, Juan M. Sanchez, Horacio Sapriza and Emircan Yurdagul
Consumers who would benefit from lower tariffs on a good tend to matter more when setting trade policy than producers who want higher tariffs.
Crude oil prices spiked following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, adding to the pricing pressures that were already affecting energy markets. Filling any supply gaps won't be easy.
The recent removal of several Russian banks from SWIFT has sparked questions about unintended consequences.
Yale University economist on developing countries, measuring economies by satellite, and the learning crisis.
How do financial crises affecting banks in one part of the world ripple through the global economy?
The emergence of a new COVID-19 variant poses risks to next year's economic outlook, especially if a spike in cases leads to supply disruptions in China and higher prices for Chinese imports.
We use a detailed establishment-level dataset from Germany to document a new dimension of firm heterogeneity: large firms spend a higher share of their wage bill on immigrants than small firms.
Agostina Brinatti and Nicolas Morales
His Pax Mongolica connected Europe and China, leading to exchanges of technology and culture.
John Mullin
Multinational corporate taxation is a long-standing game of cat and mouse. Laws are enacted, corporations react by shifting operations and residency (not to mention engaging in creative accounting), and governments take countermeasures.
John Mullin
The policies were gradually phased out in many advanced and emerging economies. Will they come back?
John Mullin
Economists at the Richmond Fed analyze the role of dealer-provided liquidity in sovereign credit default swap markets.
John Mullin and Bruno Sultanum
What caused the housing boom and bust of the early 2000s?
Daisuke Ikeda, Toan Phan and Tim Sablik
Trade imbalances are a perennial concern for policymakers and the public. But what does it mean for a country to have a trade surplus or deficit?
Harvard University economist on risks of financial globalization in developing countries, the role of the nation-state, and local culture in economics
Aaron Steelman
Publications Director
Richmond Fed President Jeffrey M. Lacker discussed workforce development during his speech to Charlotte business leaders on Nov. 5.
Jeffrey M. Lacker
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
President Jeff Lacker addresses the Global Interdependence Center in Philadelphia, which named him its 2013 Global Citizen.
Jeffrey M. Lacker
President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
In recent years, large positive and negative balances have arisen in TARGET2, the interbank settlement and payments system of the Eurozone. These balances show that the Deutsche Bundesbank, the central bank of Germany, has become a large net creditor to the European Central Bank (ECB).
Thomas A. Lubik and Karl Rhodes