The scope of this paper is to define thenotion of global imbalances as well as to present theamounts of trade imbalances of the world's largest tradersin the period before and in the aftermath of the globaleconomic crisis. Although the global economic crisis hassomewhat corrected high deficits, or surpluses of the world'slargest traders, data show that after the recovery of worldtrade after the global economic crisis, there is a resumptionof trade imbalances in these countries. The global tradeimbalances of the world's largest traders are shown inabsolute terms as the difference between the import andexport of goods, but also in relative terms expressed as ashare of the surplus or deficit in the gross domestic productof each country. It is important to point out that thirteencountries whose trade imbalances are represented in thispaper, either individually or as aggregated within a group ofcountries, make up over half of the world's total trade ingoods.
GLOBAL TRADE IMBALANCES – AN ANALYSIS BEFORE AND AFTER THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS