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BRIEF

Trade Research, Data, and Policy Insights on the COVID-19 Pandemic

This roundup of trade research, data, and policy insights by the Development Research Group at the World Bank focuses on the early impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the international movement of goods and services, and the people affected. 


FEATURED RESEARCH

How Resilient Was Trade to COVID-19?
Maria Bas, Ana Margarida Fernandes, and Caroline Paunov
World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 9975, March 2022

This paper examines which product supply-side characteristics affect the resilience of traded products to the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on monthly product-level exports by all countries to the United States, Japan, and 27 European Union countries from January 2018 to December 2020, the paper estimates a difference-in-differences specification for the impact of COVID-19 incidence (deaths per capita) mediated by product characteristics, accounting for when exports reach their destination by relying on product transportation lags. Higher reliance on foreign inputs, China as an input supplier, and unskilled labor and a lower degree of complexity negatively affected exports as a result of COVID-19.

Working Paper