ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relative importance of trade with all nations, followed by a specific attention to that with the European Union. For the individual US state and regional economies, the key impacts of any international trade event are those which affect their own production and employment levels, the two of which are intimately related. State and regional economic health is most directly determined by industrial output and employment, and for the income and tax revenues they generate. An example of the kind of trade indexing that is being undertaken at the state level is the North Carolina World Trade Index described by John C. Dutton and Edward W. Erickson. A hybrid database of state exports and imports is created using a variety of off-the-shelf sources. While the individual states and regions appear to be significant factors for only the trade exposure case, distinct types of regions are a significant explanatory factor in every case.
