Firms and the global crisis: French exports in the turmoil

International audienceGlobal trade contracted quickly and severely during the global crisis. This paper, using data on French firms, shows that most of the trade collapse is accounted by the intensive margin of large exporters but that many small exporters were forced to reduce both the number of products exported and destinations served or to stop exporting altogether. Small and large exporters su ered quantitatively proportional trade losses. Nonetheless, large fi rms absorbed the shock mostly by downsizing the value of exports and smaller rms by ceasing trade relationships. The di erential impact of the trade collapse on rms also had a distinct sectoral dimension, with firms exporting intermediate and equipment goods su ffering the worst losses. Finally, we find clear econometric evidence that the impact was greatest for nancially constrained firms, in particular if they were active in the sectors of high financial dependence. These results are robust to controlling for di erences in firm size and various determinants of the financial health of the fi rm