OECD Export Credit Agencies: Supplementing Short-Term Export Credit Insurance during the 2008 Financial Crisis

The 2008 financial crisis impacted international trade in part due to decreases in trade finance and export credit insurance. This article shows that Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member states used their public Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) to supplement the lack of private short-term export credit insurance as a means to increase trade. All OECD states, except Greece and Estonia, either increased the capacity of their ECAs to provide short-term export credit insurance, or they developed new products for this purpose. More generally, states that changed their short-term export credit insurance programs had major trading partners with defaults.