IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/9498.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis : Evidence from a New Data Set

Author

Listed:
  • Evenett,Simon J.
  • Fiorini,Matteo
  • Fritz,Johannes
  • Hoekman,Bernard M.
  • Lukaszuk,Piotr
  • Rocha,Nadia
  • Ruta,Michele
  • Santi,Filippo
  • Shingal,Anirudh

Abstract

This paper presents new high-frequency data on trade policy changes targeting medical and food products since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, documenting how countries used trade policy instruments in response to the health crisis on a week-by-week basis. The data set reveals a rapid increase in trade policy activism in February and March 2020 in tandem with the rise in COVID-19 cases, but also uncovers extensive heterogeneity across countries in their use of trade policy and the types of measures used. Some countries acted to restrict exports and facilitate imports, others targeted only one of these margins, and many did not use trade policy at all. The observed heterogeneity suggests numerous research questions on the drivers of trade policy responses to COVID-19, the effects of these measures on trade and prices of critical products, and the role of trade agreements in influencing trade activism.

Suggested Citation

  • Evenett,Simon J. & Fiorini,Matteo & Fritz,Johannes & Hoekman,Bernard M. & Lukaszuk,Piotr & Rocha,Nadia & Ruta,Michele & Santi,Filippo & Shingal,Anirudh, 2020. "Trade Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis : Evidence from a New Data Set," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9498, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9498
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/342251607972979213/pdf/Trade-Policy-Responses-to-the-COVID-19-Pandemic-Crisis-Evidence-from-a-New-Data-Set.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon J. Evenett, 2020. "Sicken thy neighbour: The initial trade policy response to COVID‐19," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(4), pages 828-839, April.
    2. Bernard Hoekman & Anirudh Shingal & Varun Eknath & Viktoriya Ereshchenko, 2022. "COVID‐19, public procurement regimes and trade policy," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 409-429, February.
    3. Espitia,Alvaro & Rocha,Nadia & Ruta,Michele, 2020. "Covid-19 and Food Protectionism : The Impact of the Pandemic and Export Restrictions on World Food Markets," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9253, The World Bank.
    4. Lionel Fontagné & Houssein Guimbard & Gianluca Orefice, 2019. "Product-Level Trade Elasticities," Working Papers 2019-17, CEPII research center.
    5. Fernando Leibovici & Ana Maria Santacreu, 2020. "Shortages of Critical Goods in a Global Economy: Optimal Trade and Industrial Policy," Working Papers 2020-010, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised Dec 2023.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ines Kersan‐Škabić, 2022. "The COVID‐19 pandemic and the internationalization of production: A review of the literature," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 40(2), March.
    2. Egger, Peter H. & Masllorens, Gerard & Rocha, Nadia & Ruta, Michele, 2023. "Scarcity nationalism during COVID-19: Identifying the impact on trade costs," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    3. Bernard Hoekman & Anirudh Shingal & Varun Eknath & Viktoriya Ereshchenko, 2022. "COVID‐19, public procurement regimes and trade policy," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 409-429, February.
    4. Evgeny N. Smirnov & Sergey A. Lukyanov, 2021. "Instability of international trade and approaches to optimal regulation," Upravlenets, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 12(5), pages 21-31, November.
    5. Aditya Goenka & Lin Liu & Manh-Hung Nguyen, 2021. "Modeling optimal quarantines with waning immunity," Discussion Papers 21-10, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    6. Michael Klien & Michael Böheim & Matthias Firgo & Andreas Reinstaller & Peter Reschenhofer & Yvonne Wolfmayr, 2021. "Stärkung der Unabhängigkeit des Wirtschaftsstandortes Österreich bei kritischen Produkten," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 67234, February.
    7. Inna Čábelková & Luboš Smutka & Svitlana Rotterova & Olesya Zhytna & Vít Kluger & David Mareš, 2022. "The Sustainability of International Trade: The Impact of Ongoing Military Conflicts, Infrastructure, Common Language, and Economic Wellbeing in Post-Soviet Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-14, August.
    8. Simona Giglioli & Giorgia Giovannetti & Enrico Marvasi & Arianna Vivoli, 2021. "The Resilience of Global Value Chains during the Covid-19 pandemic: the case of Italy," Working Papers - Economics wp2021_07.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    9. Wijesinghe, Asanka & Kaushalya, Thilani, 2022. "Caloric consumption efficiency and import dependency: Evidence from Sri Lanka," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 420-438.
    10. Das, Sanchita Basu & Sen, Rahul, 2022. "Trade Interdependencies in COVID-19-Related Essential Medical Goods: Role of Trade Facilitation and Cooperation for the Asian Economies," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 666, Asian Development Bank.
    11. Ahn, Soojung & Steinbach, Sandro, 2022. "COVID-19 Trade Actions and Their Impact on the Agricultural and Food Sector," 2023 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 6-8, 2023, New Orleans, Louisiana 316789, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Qing Zhou & Saiya Li & Yali Zhang, 2023. "Combined Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic and Locust Plague on Grain Production and Trade Patterns in South Asia," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-14, June.
    13. Gian Paolo Clemente & Rosanna Grassi & Giorgio Rizzini, 2022. "The effect of the pandemic on complex socio-economic systems: community detection induced by communicability," Papers 2201.12618, arXiv.org.
    14. Alessandro Nicita & Enxhi Tresa, 2022. "Trade policy and trade resilience during the 2020 trade downturn," UNCTAD Working Papers #1, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    15. Evenett, Simon J., 2021. "Export curbs on essential goods in the wake of Covid-19 and the least developed countries: Permanent scarring from a temporary outburst," Briefing Papers 19/2021, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    16. Nadia Doytch & Nishant Yonzan & Ketan Reddy & Filip De Beule, 2021. "Tracking Greenfield FDI During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Analysis by Sectors," Foreign Trade Review, , vol. 56(4), pages 454-475, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bernard Hoekman & Anirudh Shingal & Varun Eknath & Viktoriya Ereshchenko, 2022. "COVID‐19, public procurement regimes and trade policy," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 409-429, February.
    2. Marco Grassia & Giuseppe Mangioni & Stefano Schiavo & Silvio Traverso, 2020. "(Unintended) Consequences of export restrictions on medical goods during the Covid-19 pandemic," Papers 2007.11941, arXiv.org.
    3. Margherita, Alessandro & Elia, Gianluca & Klein, Mark, 2021. "Managing the COVID-19 emergency: A coordination framework to enhance response practices and actions," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    4. Marta Wincewicz-Bosy & Adam Sadowski & Katarzyna Wąsowska & Zbigniew Galar & Małgorzata Dymyt, 2022. "Military Food Supply Chain during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-22, February.
    5. Nicole Palan & Nadia Simoes & Nuno Crespo, 2021. "Measuring fifty years of trade globalisation," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(6), pages 1859-1884, June.
    6. Viral Acharya & Zhengyang Jiang & Robert J. Richmond & Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden, 2020. "Divided We Fall: International Health and Trade Coordination During a Pandemic," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2020_248, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    7. Fontagné, Lionel & Santoni, Gianluca, 2021. "GVCs and the endogenous geography of RTAs," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    8. Marco Due~nas & V'ictor Ortiz & Massimo Riccaboni & Francesco Serti, 2021. "Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on Trade: a Machine Learning Counterfactual Analysis," Papers 2104.04570, arXiv.org.
    9. Josephine Borghi & Garrett W. Brown, 2022. "Taking Systems Thinking to the Global Level: Using the WHO Building Blocks to Describe and Appraise the Global Health System in Relation to COVID‐19," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 13(2), pages 193-207, May.
    10. Verma, Surabhi & Gustafsson, Anders, 2020. "Investigating the emerging COVID-19 research trends in the field of business and management: A bibliometric analysis approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 253-261.
    11. Campi, Mercedes & Dueñas, Marco, 2022. "Clusters and Resilience during the COVID–19 Crisis: Evidence from Colombian Exporting Firms," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 12527, Inter-American Development Bank.
    12. Maximilian Koppenberg & Martina Bozzola & Tobias Dalhaus & Stefan Hirsch, 2021. "Mapping potential implications of temporary COVID‐19 export bans for the food supply in importing countries using precrisis trade flows," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(1), pages 25-43, January.
    13. Margarida Rodrigues & Mário Franco & Nuno Sousa & Rui Silva, 2021. "Reviewing COVID-19 Literature on Business Management: What It Portends for Future Research?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-21, May.
    14. Bacchetta, Marc & Bekkers, Eddy & Piermartini, Roberta & Rubinova, Stela & Stolzenburg, Victor & Xu, Ankai, 2021. "COVID-19 and global value chains: A discussion of arguments on value chain organization and the role of the WTO," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2021-3, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    15. Luciano Gutierrez & Guillaume Pierre & Maria Sabbagh, 2022. "Agricultural Grain Markets in the COVID-19 Crisis, Insights from a GVAR Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-13, August.
    16. Wendkouni Jean‐Baptiste Zongo & Bruno Larue & Carl Gaigné, 2023. "On export duration puzzles," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(2), pages 453-478, March.
    17. Fuchs, Andreas & Kaplan, Lennart & Kis-Katos, Krisztina & Schmidt, Sebastian S. & Turbanisch, Felix & Wang, Feicheng, 2020. "Mask wars: China's exports of medical goods in times of COVID-19," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 398, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    18. Florin Aliu & Jiří Kučera & Simona Hašková, 2023. "Agricultural Commodities in the Context of the Russia-Ukraine War: Evidence from Corn, Wheat, Barley, and Sunflower Oil," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-23, March.
    19. Klaus F. Zimmermann & Gokhan Karabulut & Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin & Asli Cansin Doker, 2020. "Inter‐country distancing, globalisation and the coronavirus pandemic," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(6), pages 1484-1498, June.
    20. B. A. Kheifets & V. Yu. Chernova, 2022. "Effects of Export Control Policy on Food Security: The Case of the Grain Market in Russia," Studies on Russian Economic Development, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 211-217, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    International Trade and Trade Rules; Rules of Origin; Trade Policy; Trade and Multilateral Issues; Health and Sanitation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F52 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - National Security; Economic Nationalism
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9498. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.