Interactive economics

Shockwave

What sealing your own border costs you. Pick a country, then drag the dial from open to sealed and watch the walls — and the losses — rise continuously.

Choose a view
25% 305% no data

shading = trade openness (exports + imports as a share of GDP)

    1Set the shock

    Tariffs ✓ backtested at +2.3pp

    a tax on everything imported

    Capital leaving ◖ observed

    investment relocating abroad

    Migration cap ◖ observed

    arrivals blocked at the border
    each dial moves on its own · 0 = nothing changes
    only the tariff reaches other countries · capital and migration change the origin’s own outcomes
    targeting one partner lets the other suppliers GAIN: a share of the abandoned demand re-routes to them instead of vanishing — the 2018–19 Vietnam effect. Allocated pro-rata (a stated, assumed rule).

    2Outcomes at this severity

    2What the origin stops buying

    origin

    3Most affected

    Least affected — among the 30 largest economies

    Country detail

    Click any country on the map for its full outcome set.
    Universal-closure scenario, first-order spillover accounting — not general equilibrium. Trade-diversion gains are not modelled under universal closure: every supplier faces the same wall, so no untaxed alternative exists (target one partner to see diversion). Goods trade only; services and remittance exposure are flagged, not counted. Rankings sample the imputed inputs — the “holds top-3 in N% of input draws” figure is that test, and only that test: it resamples inputs with the model’s structure held fixed, so the omissions listed above contribute nothing to it. The least-affected list carries no such figure; it is an argmax over a restricted set where hits cluster near zero, and is the more fragile of the two rankings.
    where the loss comes from
    distortion costlier inputs lost export value forgone investment lost labour
    The damage curve

    Every severity from open to sealed, run through the same engine. Hover to read any point; click to move the dial there.

    What you gained, what it cost

    Gained

    Tariff revenue
    Protected-sector jobs
    Terms of trade

    Cost

    Wasted on distortion
    Costlier imported inputs
    Lost export value added
    Forgone investment
    Lost labour supply
    What the answer hinges on