When the investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in late 2008, the news sent shockwaves across the global economy. The drop in confidence decimated world trade, leading to what the authors of this book call the Great Trade Collapse. The fall in trade was sudden, severe and synchronised - falling faster than during the Great Depression and by more than at any time since the Second World War; more than during the oil-price hikes of the 1970s, the recession of the early 1980s and the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2001. It affected all 104 nations on which the WTO reports.This book, first published as an eBook on VoxEU.org to inform world leaders ahead of the WTO's Trade Ministerial conference in Geneva in late 2009, presents the economics profession's received wisdom on the causes, consequence and prospects of the Great Trade Collapse - a wisdom that continues to serve the trade community today.The authors are: Dony Alex, Carlo Altomonte, Sónia Araújo, Richard Baldwin, Rudolfs Bems, Fred Bergsten, Gilberto Biacuna, Ingo Borchert, Peter Draper, Simon Evenett, Michael Ferrantino, Lionel Fontagne, Joseph Francois, Caroline Freund, Jeffry Frieden, Guillaume Gaulier, Leonardo Iacovone, David Jacks, Robert Johnson, Tonia Kandiero, Anne Krueger, Rajiv Kumar, Aimee Larsen, Andrei Levchenko, Logan Lewis, Aaditya Mattoo, Christopher Meissner, Jesse Mora, Léonce Ndikumana, Dennis Novy, Joaquim Oliveira Martins, Kevin O'Rourke, Gianmarco Ottaviano, William Powers, Raymond Robertson, Peter Schott, Daria Taglioni, Kiyoyasu Tanaka, Linda Tesar, Ruyhei Wakasugi, Julia Woerz, Kei-Mu Yi, Veronika Zavacka.