ABSTRACT
The 2008 Global Financial Crisis affected financial institutions and markets worldwide resulting in a 12 percent decline in trade volumes, the largest since World War II (International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) 2010). Economists have provided various reasons for trade declines, and most of these explanations involve problems with trade finance and export credit insurers. Researchers examined the severe decline in trade and concluded that there was a link between the effects of the banking crisis on export growth (Amiti and Weinstein 2009; Iacovone and Zavacka 2009). Specifically, these studies and others (Auboin 2009; Asmundson, Dorsey, Khachatryan, Niculcea and Saito 2011) found that the scarce availability of trade credit could be responsible for the decrease in the volume of exports.
