 Trade under lockdownAntoine Berthou and Sebastian Stumpner Journal of International Economics, 2024, vol. 152, issue C Abstract: To curb the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on public health, many countries around the world introduced lockdown policies in 2020. This paper estimates the effect of these lockdowns on international trade flows using a rich dataset of monthly bilateral trade flows covering over 80% of world trade. We first document that both exporter and importer lockdowns significantly reduced trade flows, that this effect differed substantially across sectors, and has been declining over time. We then decompose this total effect into a direct effect of lockdowns on trade, and an indirect effect that is mediated by a decline in economic activity. Our results indicate that lockdowns reduced trade also conditional on economic activity, suggesting an important increase in trade costs due to lockdowns. A quantification exercise shows that the welfare consequences of these trade costs were sizable, amounting to about one sixth of the welfare loss under a complete return to autarky. Keywords: COVID-19; Impact of lockdowns (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:inecon:v:152:y:2024:i:c:s0022199624001405 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2024.104013 Access Statistics for this article Journal of International Economics is currently edited by Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and RodrÃguez-Clare, Andrés More articles in Journal of International Economics from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to econpapers@oru.se.
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.