Gravity of Covid-19

ABSTRACT

In this study, we analyze the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on bilateral trade using monthly data from January to June 2020. Imports of the OECD member states are analyzed using a structural gravity model of trade estimated with the Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood estimator. The analysis is conducted for total imports and for fruit and vegetables. Our findings show a significantly negative impact of the pandemic on both import measures, which is more pronounced for the perishable goods than for aggregate imports. © 2022. Economics Bulletin. All Rights Reserved.