Vulnerability to foreign macroeconomic shocks – an empirical study in cross-industry perspective. Example of 2008–2009 global crisis in Europe*

The paper analyses the factors explaining the vulnerability of the European countries’ industries to foreign trade and production downturn in the years 2008-2009 and attempts to identify branches and industries (or their features significant in this context) that most greatly contributed to the last crisis transmission in Europe, mainly through the slump in their trade. Among those factors we took into particular consideration: the level of specialization versus diversification of the export basket and production, trade openness in the cross-country and cross-industry perspective, the intra-industry/inter-industry structure of trade and the financial openness.