Profundización, apertura y cierre de mercados de exportación a nivel sectorial en Colombia: Una estimación de los márgenes del comercio y su relación con el ciclo económico.

We explore, from an empirical perspective, the behavior of export markets opening, deepening, and closing at the sectoral level, during 1997-2010 for the case of Colombia, with an emphasis on the two recessions that the economy suffered during this time. For this, we use a trade decomposition technique that allows us to measure each of these market events and trace its behavior along time as well as in the cross-section. Results indicate that, in the short term, the intensive margin of trade largely determines the behavior of exports, while in the medium run an important role is played by the extensive margin. Furthermore, from a sectoral perspective, during the 1997-1999 crisis no uniform pattern is found for the trade margins, while during the 2008-2009 crisis a notoriously homogenous pattern emerges across sectors.