The South American commercial exchange process and the economic crises

Abstract

Economic crises can be both obstacles and opportunities for strengthening the South American trade integration process. The hypothesis is that when crises are intra-regional trade is directed out of the region, weakening the trade integration process; on the contrary, when crises have extra regional origin intraregional trade increases, intensifying this process. The aim is to study the evolution of the South American trade flows during the period 1990-2010 in accordance with any changes that occurred after the economic crisis.  Trade flows of industrial manufactures are analyzed from three perspectives: composition, size, origin and destination. The methodology is based on the construction of economic index an on descriptive statistical analysis. It is concluded that, in general terms, studies of magnitude and origin and destination are consistent with the hypothesis of the work but not the analysis of the composition.