The Impact of COVID-19 international travel restrictions on services-trade costs

Sebastian Benz, Frédéric Gonzales and Annabelle Mourougane
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Frédéric Gonzales: OECD

No 237, OECD Trade Policy Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: This report casts light on the impact of regulatory restrictions on the movement of people across international borders on services trade costs. Such restrictions were implemented on health and safety grounds following the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020. The analysis relies on several illustrative scenarios in which all the countries are assumed to close their borders to passengers, but leave freight trade open. Services trade costs are estimated to increase by an average of 12% of export values across sectors and countries in the medium term in such a hypothetical scenario. The analysis identifies a large variability in the increase in services-trade costs across sectors and across countries, reflecting the stringency of initial regulations and the relative importance of business travel and labour mobility to international services trade.

Keywords: COVID-19 (coronavirus); trade in services; travel bans (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F2 F68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int, nep-mig and nep-tre
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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