With trade falling sharply around the world, economies particularly dependent on trade were hit especially hard. Exhibit 2 illustrates this point for a group of Asian and non-Asian economies. The vertical axis of the figure shows real GDP growth, measured relative to trend, during the most severe stage of the downturn, and the horizontal axis shows a measure of openness to trade.
The creation of the ESRB is a response to one of the key lessons of the financial crisis regarding the need for an enhanced macro-prudential oversight of the financial system as a new policy function.