Economic growth in foreign regions and U.S. export growth

U.S. export growth depends crucially on foreign demand. Lower foreign economic growth is associated with lower U.S. export growth. And recently, some parts of the world, particularly Asia and Europe, have shown signs of slowing growth. ; Disaggregating historical data by region, authors Nie and Taylor measure the changes in U.S. export growth associated with changes in different regions' economic growth. They find the change in U.S. export growth associated with change in a given foreign region's growth depends both on the size of the region's economy and on the share of U.S. exports destined for that region. ; Given forecasts of slower economic growth in foreign regions, particularly in Europe and Asia, this article suggests the expected slowdown abroad will be associated with a 0.4-percentage-point reduction in the contribution of U.S. real export growth to U.S. real GDP growth, over the two-year, 2013-2014 period.