1887

OECD Trade Policy Papers

This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected trade policy studies prepared for use within the OECD.

NB. No. 1 to No. 139 were released under the previous series title OECD Trade Policy Working Papers.

English

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

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.

English

Keywords: trade in services, travel bans, COVID-19 (coronavirus)
JEL: F2: International Economics / International Factor Movements and International Business; F68: International Economics / Economic Impacts of Globalization / Economic Impacts of Globalization: Policy; F14: International Economics / Trade / Empirical Studies of Trade
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