Person:
Crowley, Meredith Allison

Economic Research, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
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Fields of Specialization
International Trade; World Trade Organization; Trade Policy
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ORCID
0000-0003-1149-4846
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Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
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Economic Research, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
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Last updated: January 31, 2023
Biography
Meredith Crowley is a senior economist in the economic research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Crowley provides research and analysis on international trade and developments in the world economy. Since joining the Chicago Fed in 2001, Crowley has also served as a visiting associate professor at Georgetown University. She has served as an Adviser to the American Law Institute project on the Principles of the Law of World Trade and as an Advisory Board Member to the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Subsidyscope project. Crowley's research on international trade, the World Trade Organization, special forms of import protection and technology adoption has appeared in numerous journals, such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of International Economics, the European Journal of Political Economy, the Canadian Journal of Economics, World Trade Review and Economic Perspectives, the Chicago Fed's quarterly research publication. Crowley received bachelor's degrees in Asian studies and chemistry from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME, a master of public policy degree in international trade and finance from Harvard University, and master's and doctorate degrees in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Citations 36 Scopus

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Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Emerging Economies, Trade Policy, and Macroeconomic Shocks
    (Elsevier, 2014-05-09) Bown, Chad P.; Crowley, Meredith A.
    This paper estimates the impact of aggregate fluctuations on the time-varying trade policies of thirteen major emerging economies over 1989–2010; by 2010, these WTO member countries collectively accounted for 21% of world merchandise imports and 22% of world GDP. We examine determinants of carefully constructed, bilateral measures of new import restrictions on products arising through the temporary trade barrier (TTB) policies of antidumping, safeguards, and countervailing duties. We find evidence of a counter-cyclical relationship between macroeconomic shocks and new TTB import restrictions as well as an important role for fluctuations in bilateral real exchange rates. Furthermore, the trade policy responsiveness coinciding with WTO establishment in 1995 suggests a significant change relative to the pre-WTO period; i.e., new import restrictions became more counter-cyclical and sensitive to real exchange rate shocks over time. Finally, we also present results that explicitly address changes to the institutional environment facing these emerging economies as they joined the WTO and adopted disciplines to restrain their application of other trade policies such as applied import tariffs.
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    Import Protection, Business Cycles, and Exchange Rates : Evidence from the Great Recession
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-04) Bown, Chad P.; Crowley, Meredith A.
    This research estimates the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations on import protection policies over 1988:Q1-2010:Q4 for the United States, European Union, and three other industrialized economies. First, estimates on a pre-Great Recession sample provide evidence of three key relationships for the US and EU. Increases in domestic unemployment rates and real appreciations in bilateral exchange rates led to substantial increases in antidumping and related forms of import protection. Furthermore, economies historically imposed these bilateral import restrictions on trading partners going through their own periods of weak economic growth. Second, estimates from the pre-Great Recession model predict a major trade policy response during 2008:Q4-2010:Q4, given the realized macroeconomic shocks. New US and EU trade barriers were projected to cover up to an additional 15 percentage points of nonoil imports, well above the baseline level of 2-3 percent of import coverage immediately preceding the crisis. Third, re-estimating the model on data from the Great Recession period illustrates why the realized trade policy response differed from model predictions based on historical data. While exchange rate movements played an important role in limiting new import protection, the US and EU also "switched" from their historical behavior during the Great Recession and shifted new import protection toward trading partners experiencing economic growth and away from those that were contracting.
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    Emerging Economies, Trade Policy, and Macroeconomic Shocks
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-01) Bown, Chad P.; Crowley, Meredith A.
    This paper estimates the impact of aggregate fluctuations on the time-varying trade policies of 13 major emerging economies over 1989-2010. By 2010, these World Trade Organization member countries collectively accounted for 21 percent of world merchandise imports and 22 percent of world gross domestic product. The paper examines determinants of carefully constructed, bilateral measures of new import restrictions on products arising through the temporary trade barrier (TTB) policies of antidumping, safeguards, and countervailing duties. The approach explicitly addresses changes to the institutional environment facing these emerging economies as they joined the WTO and adopted disciplines to restrain their application of other trade policies, such as applied import tariffs. The paper presents evidence of a counter-cyclical relationship between macroeconomic shocks and new TTB import restrictions in addition to an important role for fluctuations in bilateral real exchange rates. Furthermore, for the subset of major Group of 20 emerging economies, the trade policy responsiveness coinciding with WTO establishment in 1995 suggests a significant change relative to the pre-WTO period; i.e., new import restrictions became more counter-cyclical over time. Finally, the paper documents evidence on changes to some of these empirical relationships coinciding with the Great Recession.
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    China’s Export Growth and the China Safeguard : Threats to the World Trading System?
    (2010-05-01) Bown, Chad P.; Crowley, Meredith A.
    Is there evidence from China's pre-WTO accession period that newly imposed U.S. or EU import restrictions deflect Chinese exports to third markets? The authors examine this question by drawing on a newly constructed data set of U.S. and EU product-level import restrictions on Chinese trade imposed between 1992 and 2001 and estimate their impact on Chinese exports to 38 alternative markets. There is no systematic evidence that the import restrictions imposed during this period resulted in Chinese exports surging to such alternate destinations. To the contrary, there is weak evidence of a chilling effect on China's exports to third markets.
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    Self-Enforcing Trade Agreements : Evidence from Time-Varying Trade Policy
    (2010-03-01) Bown, Chad P.; Crowley, Meredith A.
    This paper estimates a model of a government making trade policy adjustments under a self-enforcing trade agreement in the presence of economic shocks. The empirical model is motivated by the formal theories of cooperative trade agreements. The authors find evidence that United States' use of its antidumping policy during 1997-2006 is consistent with increases in time-varying "cooperative" tariffs, where the likelihood of antidumping is increasing in the size of unexpected import surges, decreasing in the volatility of imports, and decreasing in the elasticities of import demand and export supply. The analysis finds additional support for the theory that some US antidumping use is consistent with cooperative behavior through a second empirical examination of how trading partners responded to these new US tariffs. Even after controlling for factors such as the expected cost and benefit to filing a WTO dispute or engaging in antidumping retaliation, the analysis find that trading partners are less likely to challenge such "cooperative" US antidumping tariffs that were imposed under terms-of-trade pressure suggested by the theory.
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    Publication
    China's Export Growth and the China Safeguard : Threats to the World Trading System?
    (2010) Bown, Chad P.; Crowley, Meredith A.
    Is there evidence from China's pre-WTO accession period that newly imposed U.S. or EU import restrictions deflect Chinese exports to third markets? We examine this question by drawing on a newly constructed data set of U.S. and EU product-level import restrictions on Chinese trade imposed between 1992 and 2001, and we estimate their impact on Chinese exports to alternative markets. We find no systematic evidence that the import restrictions imposed during this period resulted in Chinese exports surging to third markets. To the contrary, there is weak evidence of a chilling effect on China's exports to third markets.