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. 2021 Oct 13;16(10):e0258356.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0258356. eCollection 2021.

Effects of COVID-19 on trade flows: Measuring their impact through government policy responses

Javier Barbero  1 , Juan José de Lucio  2 , Ernesto Rodríguez-Crespo  3
Affiliations

Effects of COVID-19 on trade flows: Measuring their impact through government policy responses

Javier Barbero et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 on bilateral trade flows using a state-of-the-art gravity model of trade. Using the monthly trade data of 68 countries exporting across 222 destinations between January 2019 and October 2020, our results are threefold. First, we find a greater negative impact of COVID-19 on bilateral trade for those countries that were members of regional trade agreements before the pandemic. Second, we find that the impact of COVID-19 is negative and significant when we consider indicators related to governmental actions. Finally, this negative effect is more intense when exporter and importer country share identical income levels. In the latter case, the highest negative impact is found for exports between high-income countries.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Evolution of the four COVID-19 policy indicators between December 2019 and October 2020 by income level for our sample of exporting countries.
Source: own elaboration from [63]. Note: each point represents a country, and the concentration of countries with similar values produces darker areas. Additionally, the mean and 95% confidence bands are represented.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Monthly evolution index of total exports in 2020, relative to January 2020 = 100.
Source: own elaboration using UN Comtrade trade data.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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