scholarly journals The Impact of the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Trade between Canada and the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol COVID-19 ◽  
pp. e2021028
Author(s):  
Miguel Cardoso ◽  
Brandon Malloy

We examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted trade between Canada and the United States, using a novel dataset on monthly bilateral trade flows between Canadian provinces and U.S. states, merged with COVID-19 health data. Our results show that a one-standard deviation increase in COVID-19 severity (case levels, hospitalizations, deaths) in a Canadian province leads to a fall of 3.1 to 4.9% in exports and a 6.7% to 9.1% fall in imports. Decomposing our analysis by industry, we determine that trade in the manufacturing industry was most negatively affected by the pandemic, while the agriculture industry suffered the least disruption to trade flows. Our descriptive evidence suggests that lockdowns may have also reduced Canadian exports and imports. However, while our regression coefficients are consistent with that finding, they are not statistically significant, perhaps because of the lack of variation due to similar timing in the imposition of restrictions across provinces.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Trachtenberg

This paper uses data on policy measures affecting services operation and trade to document and estimate the impact of different types of policy measures on services exports and imports, with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. It finds that market-entry measures are important to both total services exports and imports in the region and bilateral trade flows with the United States, while measures relating to the operation of service providers are important for bilateral trade flows with the United States.


Author(s):  
Treb Allen ◽  
Stephen Meardon

Several varieties of bilateral trade arrangements were tried in the United States from independence to 1909. They included most-favored-nation (MFN) treaties of the conditional and unconditional varieties, MFN treaties in which the conditionality was implicit, preferential trade arrangements, and agreements of a different nature authorized by the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 and the Dingley Act of 1897. This essay is an inquest of the varieties of U.S. trade arrangements and their effects on bilateral trade flows. It surveys the several varieties, discusses the circumstances of their usage, and uses a gravity model to estimate empirically their effects. The empirical results show that bilateralism's effects on trade flows are contingent upon its varieties and historical circumstances.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
Maria Cipollina ◽  
Federica Demaria

Nowadays, trade negotiations afford both liberalism- and protectionism-oriented policies. Indeed, in recent decades, the developed countries have been actively engaged in negotiating many preferential agreements to integrate developing countries (DCs) into world trade and encourage their economic growth, but many of these schemes contrast with the complex rules, often imposed on international markets, that still are an obstacle for exporters. Their presence and related costs reduce the importance of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in increasing trade flows. This article attempts to assess the impact of preferential trade policies on trade flows controlling for different non-tariff barriers (NTBs), using a structural gravity model. The analysis uses disaggregated data, registered in the year 2017, on EU imports (defined at level HS-6 digit) from a large number of exporters (187 developed and developing countries) and also includes the intra-EU trade. Our results show robust and positive estimates for the impact of preferences on bilateral trade flows, however, higher non-tariff barriers are likely to play a role in reducing both the extensive margins of trade, and so tariff preferences alone are not sufficient to access international markets. The impact of NTBs on the intensive margin of trade is ambiguous; some measures may act as catalysts and therefore increase trade, and others may act as an additional cost of trade and thus hinder trade.


2004 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 123-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis M. Imbeau

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to review the empirical public choice literature explaining deficits levels in federated states. First, I describe theoretical constructs, showing how new theories have developed by releasing one of the basic Ricardo-Barro assumptions. Empirical results bearing on the federated states of Australia, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States are then reviewed to assess which hypothesis, in which setting, is confirmed by systematic observation. On the whole, this literature shows that economic cycles have an impact on budget balances. It also shows that deficits are higher in election years in German Lander, Canadian provinces, and American states, but not in Australian states nor in Swiss cantons. In addition, the literature tends to support the hypothesis that the stringency of budgetary rules is related to higher budget balances in Canada, Switzerland, and in the United States. Finally, government fragmentation has no impact on the budget balances of federated states and parties of the left do not have higher deficits than parties of the right, except in Switzerland where empirical evidence is mixed. Rather, parties of the center or of the right do have higher deficits in German Lander and in Canadian provinces. In the concluding section, I discuss two issues: the impact of rules, and the partisan cycle hypothesis.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0258356
Author(s):  
Javier Barbero ◽  
Juan José de Lucio ◽  
Ernesto Rodríguez-Crespo

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.


Author(s):  
Łukasz Klimczak ◽  
Jelena Trivić

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that had an influence on bilateral trade flows among the CEFTA countries with special emphasize: 1) on the role of CEFTA agreement and its preceding network of bilateral free trade agreements, and 2) on the role of institutions in facilitating intra-regional trade. In order to assess the impact of these variables on trade, we employed an augmented gravity model based on panel data of the CEFTA countries in fifteen years period (2000-2014). The results of the research suggest that there was a positive and statistically significant role of the CEFTA agreement on trade between its parties but the influence of the preceding bilateral free trade agreements was even higher. Results also showed that institutions can play an important role as trade facilitators, but mainly in the importing country while in the exporting country only three of six variables showed to have a positive sign.


Author(s):  
Philippe R. Girard

Haiti (known as Saint-Domingue until it gained its independence from France in 1804) had a noted economic and political impact on the United States during the era of the American Revolution, when it forced U.S. statesmen to confront issues they had generally avoided, most prominently racism and slavery. But the impact of the Haitian Revolution was most tangible in areas like commerce, territorial expansion, and diplomacy. Saint-Domingue served as a staging ground for the French military and navy during the American Revolution and provided troops to the siege of Savannah in 1779. It became the United States’ second-largest commercial partner during the 1780s and 1790s. After Saint-Domingue’s slaves revolted in 1791, many of its inhabitants found refuge in the United States, most notably in Philadelphia, Charleston, and New Orleans. Fears (or hopes) that the slave revolt would spread to the United States were prevalent in public opinion. As Saint-Domingue achieved quasi-autonomous status under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture, it occupied a central place in the diplomacy of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. The Louisiana Purchase was made possible in part by the failure of a French expedition to Saint-Domingue in 1802–1803. Bilateral trade declined after Saint-Domingue acquired its independence from France in 1804 (after which Saint-Domingue became known as Haiti), but Haiti continued to loom large in the African-American imagination, and there were several attempts to use Haiti as a haven for U.S. freedmen. The U.S. diplomatic recognition of Haiti also served as a reference point for antebellum debates on slavery, the slave trade, and the status of free people of color in the United States.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-168
Author(s):  
Rajesh Chadha ◽  
Sanjib Pohit ◽  
Devender Pratap

The growing protectionism globally and the outbreak of a major US–China trade war led Indian exports facing higher tariffs. This article has tried to investigate how India should react to the trade tensions between the two largest economies of the world. This will help policymakers in India to assess the impact of the likely developments and choose between different policy responses. In a bilateral US–China trade war, while both the United States and China stand to lose in terms of GDP, exports and imports, India stands to gain. India stands to lose when the US–China trade war applies also to India, which faces higher tariffs from both. India’s losses increase further when India responds by increasing its tariffs on imports from the United States and China. In fact, reducing own tariffs could be a wiser step. Enhancing productivity measures by raising port efficiency and making trade and transport sector more efficient appear to pay dividend. India gains even more from joining the RCEP-like trading block when the United States and China are indulging in bilateral trade war. Last but not least, US–China trade war seems to affect Asian countries, some positively some negatively. JEL Codes: F13, C68, F14


2010 ◽  
Vol 01 (02) ◽  
pp. 227-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN S. WILSON ◽  
XUBEI LUO ◽  
HARRY G. BROADMAN

This paper examines the impact of improved trade facilitation measures and institutional capacity in a set of economies in transition Europe. Our results suggest that behind-the-border barriers play an important role in determining bilateral trade flows (controlling for the effects of tariffs, development levels, distance, and regional characteristics of exporters and importers, among other factors). For European Union (EU) members that joined the Union in 2004 and less developed and candidate members raising capacity in port efficiency and information technology infrastructures halfway to the EU-15 average, trade could expand by US$49 billion and US$62 billion respectively. In the context of the economic crisis and fragile recovery, as well as efforts to strengthen Europe integration, efforts to facilitate trade with investments to raise capacity in trade facilitation should be considered as part of policy steps going forward.


Author(s):  
Céline Carrère ◽  
Marcelo Olarreaga ◽  
Damian Raess

AbstractWe explore the impact of the introduction and design of labor clauses (LCs) in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) on bilateral trade flows over the period 1990–2014. While it is not a priori clear if the inclusion of LCs in PTAs will decrease or increase bilateral trade, we expect the direction of trade to matter, that is, we expect to observe the (negative or positive) impact of LCs in the South-North trade configuration. We also expect, in that configuration, stronger LCs to yield stronger (negative or positive) effects on bilateral trade flows. Using a novel dataset on the content of labor provisions in PTAs, we find in line with our first expectation that while the introduction of LCs has on average no impact on bilateral trade flows, it increases exports of low and middle-income countries with weaker labor standards in North–South trade agreements. Consistent with our second expectation, this positive impact is mostly driven by LCs with institutionalized cooperation provisions. In contrast, LCs with strong enforcement mechanisms do not have a statistically significant impact on exports of developing countries in North–South PTAs. The results are inconsistent with the ideas that LCs are set for protectionist reasons or have protectionist effects, casting doubt on the logic for the reluctance of many developing countries to include LCs in their trade agreements.


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