May 19, 2010

CIA interventions and internationnal trade

Daniel Berger, William Easterly, Nathan Nunn and Shanker Satyanath have a sweet new NBER WP, Commercial Imperialism? Political Influence and Trade During the Cold War:

We exploit the recent declassification of CIA documents and examine whether there is evidence of US power being used to influence countries' decisions regarding international trade. We measure US influence using a newly constructed annual panel of CIA interventions aimed at installing and supporting leaders during the Cold War... We show that following CIA interventions there was an increase in foreign-country imports from the US, but there was no similar increase in foreign-country exports to the US. Further, the increase in US exports was concentrated in industries in which the US had a comparative disadvantage... This is consistent with US influence being used to create a larger foreign market for American products. Our analysis is able to rule out decreased bilateral trade costs, changing political ideology, and an increased supply of US loans and grants as explanations for the increase in US exports to the intervened country...

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