IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/jlofdr/317780.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

COVID-19 Trade Actions in the Agricultural and Food Sector

Author

Listed:
  • Ahn, Soojung
  • Steinbach, Sandro

Abstract

This study investigated the determinants of trade actions in the agricultural and food sector related to the coronavirus pandemic. These emergency trade measures aimed to prevent the inflow of certain products and promote the import of others. We investigated the determinants of such measures using product-level trade action data for WTO members. Applying an instrumental variable approach that accounts for high-dimensional fixed effects, we found that trade actions relate negatively to the applied tariff level and the domestic pandemic severity. Countries implemented fewer trade facilitation actions considering increased domestic COVID-19 cases, but this was done more in response to spiking foreign case numbers.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahn, Soojung & Steinbach, Sandro, 2021. "COVID-19 Trade Actions in the Agricultural and Food Sector," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 52(2), July.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:jlofdr:317780
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.317780
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/317780/files/JFDR52.2_3_Ahn.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.317780?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pramila Crivelli & Jasmin Groeschl, 2016. "The Impact of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures on Market Entry and Trade Flows," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(3), pages 444-473, March.
    2. Hiau LooiKee & Alessandro Nicita & Marcelo Olarreaga, 2009. "Estimating Trade Restrictiveness Indices," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 172-199, January.
    3. Gianluca Orefice, 2017. "Non-Tariff Measures, Specific Trade Concerns and Tariff Reduction," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(9), pages 1807-1835, September.
    4. Gourieroux, Christian & Monfort, Alain & Trognon, Alain, 1984. "Pseudo Maximum Likelihood Methods: Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 681-700, May.
    5. Feng, Ling & Li, Zhiyuan & Swenson, Deborah L., 2017. "Trade policy uncertainty and exports: Evidence from China's WTO accession," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 20-36.
    6. Kym Anderson, 1980. "The Political Market for Government Assistance to Australian Manufacturing Industries," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 56(153), pages 132-144, June.
    7. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 1999. "Distribution-free estimation of some nonlinear panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 77-97, May.
    8. Cameron,A. Colin & Trivedi,Pravin K., 2013. "Regression Analysis of Count Data," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107667273.
    9. Zhaohui Niu & Chang Liu & Saileshsingh Gunessee & Chris Milner, 2018. "Non-tariff and overall protection: evidence across countries and over time," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 154(4), pages 675-703, November.
    10. Kevin Z. Chen & Rui Mao, 2020. "Fire lines as fault lines: increased trade barriers during the COVID-19 pandemic further shatter the global food system," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 12(4), pages 735-738, August.
    11. Colin Vance, 2009. "Marginal effects and significance testing with Heckman's sample selection model: a methodological note," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(14), pages 1415-1419.
    12. Bo Xiong & John Beghin, 2017. "Disentangling Demand-Enhancing And Trade-Cost Effects Of Maximum Residue Regulations," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: John Christopher Beghin (ed.), Nontariff Measures and International Trade, chapter 6, pages 105-108, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    13. Goncalves, Silvia & Kilian, Lutz, 2004. "Bootstrapping autoregressions with conditional heteroskedasticity of unknown form," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 89-120, November.
    14. Nguimkeu, Pierre & Tadadjeu, Sosson, 2021. "Why is the number of COVID-19 cases lower than expected in Sub-Saharan Africa? A cross-sectional analysis of the role of demographic and geographic factors," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    15. Disdier, Anne-Celia & Fontagne, Lionel & Mimouni, Mondher, 2008. "AJAE Appendix: The Impact of Regulations on Agricultural Trade: Evidence from the SPS and TBT Agreements," American Journal of Agricultural Economics APPENDICES, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(2), pages 1-7.
    16. Heckman, James J. & Robb, Richard Jr., 1985. "Alternative methods for evaluating the impact of interventions : An overview," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 239-267.
    17. Martin Huber & Giovanni Mellace, 2014. "Testing exclusion restrictions and additive separability in sample selection models," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 75-92, August.
    18. Otsuki, Tsunehiro & S. Wilson, John, 2003. "Food Safety and Trade: Winners and Losers in a Non-Harmonized World," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 18, pages 266-287.
    19. Ray, Edward John, 1981. "The Determinants of Tariff and Nontariff Trade Restrictions in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(1), pages 105-121, February.
    20. Jérôme Adda, 2016. "Economic Activity and the Spread of Viral Diseases: Evidence from High Frequency Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 891-941.
    21. Santos Silva, J.M.C. & Tenreyro, Silvana, 2011. "Further simulation evidence on the performance of the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimator," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 220-222, August.
    22. Fabio Gaetano Santeramo & Emilia Lamonaca, 2019. "The Effects of Non‐tariff Measures on Agri‐food Trade: A Review and Meta‐analysis of Empirical Evidence," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(3), pages 595-617, September.
    23. Semykina, Anastasia & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2010. "Estimating panel data models in the presence of endogeneity and selection," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 157(2), pages 375-380, August.
    24. Sergio Correia & Paulo Guimarães & Tom Zylkin, 2020. "Fast Poisson estimation with high-dimensional fixed effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 20(1), pages 95-115, March.
    25. Maximilian Koppenberg & Martina Bozzola & Tobias Dalhaus & Stefan Hirsch, 2021. "Mapping potential implications of temporary COVID‐19 export bans for the food supply in importing countries using precrisis trade flows," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(1), pages 25-43, January.
    26. Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2015. "Control Function Methods in Applied Econometrics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 420-445.
    27. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2015. "A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 317-372.
    28. Regmi, Anita & Gehlhar, Mark J. & Wainio, John & Vollrath, Thomas L. & Johnston, Paul V. & Kathuria, Nitin, 2005. "Market Access For High-Value Foods," Agricultural Economic Reports 33999, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    29. John Christopher Beghin (ed.), 2017. "Nontariff Measures and International Trade," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 10150, January.
    30. Beverelli, Cosimo & Boffa, Mauro & Keck, Alexander, 2014. "Trade policy substitution: Theory and evidence from Specific Trade Concerns," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2014-18, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    31. Julien Gourdon & Susan Stone & Frank van Tongeren, 2020. "Non-tariff measures in agriculture," OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Papers 147, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ahn, Soojung & Steinbach, Sandro, 2023. "Agri-food trade resilience among food-deficit countries during the COVID-19 pandemic," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 26(3), January.
    2. Ahn, Soojung & Steinbach, Sandro, 2022. "COVID-19 Trade Actions and Their Impact on the Agricultural and Food Sector," 2023 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 6-8, 2023, New Orleans, Louisiana 316789, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Arita, Shawn & Grant, Jason & Sydow, Sharon & Beckman, Jayson, 2022. "Has global agricultural trade been resilient under coronavirus (COVID-19)? Findings from an econometric assessment of 2020," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    4. Ridwan Lanre Ibrahim & Usama Al-Mulali & Kazeem Bello Ajide & Abubakar Mohammed & Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh Al-Faryan, 2023. "The Implications of Food Security on Sustainability: Do Trade Facilitation, Population Growth, and Institutional Quality Make or Mar the Target for SSA?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-23, January.
    5. Wijesinghe, Asanka & Kaushalya, Thilani, 2022. "Caloric consumption efficiency and import dependency: Evidence from Sri Lanka," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 420-438.
    6. Ahn, Soojung & Steinbach, Sandro, 2022. "COVID-19 Trade Actions and Their Impact on the Agricultural and Food Sector," 2022 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting (Virtual), January 7-9, 2022 316789, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ahn, Soojung & Steinbach, Sandro, 2022. "COVID-19 Trade Actions and Their Impact on the Agricultural and Food Sector," 2022 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting (Virtual), January 7-9, 2022 316789, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Kan Yue, 2022. "Non‐tariff measures, product quality and import demand," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(2), pages 870-900, April.
    3. Ahn, Soojung & Steinbach, Sandro, 2022. "COVID-19 Trade Actions and Their Impact on the Agricultural and Food Sector," 2023 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 6-8, 2023, New Orleans, Louisiana 316789, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Curzi, Daniele & Schuster, Monica & Maertens, Miet & Olper, Alessandro, 2020. "Standards, trade margins and product quality: Firm-level evidence from Peru," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    5. Grant, Jason & Arita, Shawn, 2017. "Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Measures: Assessment, Measurement, and Impact," Commissioned Papers 259417, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    6. Gianluca Orefice, 2017. "Non-Tariff Measures, Specific Trade Concerns and Tariff Reduction," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(9), pages 1807-1835, September.
    7. Santeramo, Fabio G., 2017. "On Non-Tariff Measures and Changes in Trade Routes: From North-North to South-South Trade?," 2017 International Congress, August 28-September 1, 2017, Parma, Italy 263493, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Mahdi Ghodsi & Robert Stehrer, 2022. "Trade policy and global value chains: tariffs versus non-tariff measures," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 158(3), pages 887-916, August.
    9. Olper, Alessandro, 2017. "The political economy of trade-related regulatory policy: environment and global value chain," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 5(3), February.
    10. Carter, Colin A. & Steinbach, Sandro & Zhuang, Xiting, 2022. "Global Shipping Container Disruptions and U.S. Agricultural Exports," Working Papers 320397, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    11. Fabio Gaetano Santeramo & Emilia Lamonaca, 2019. "The Effects of Non‐tariff Measures on Agri‐food Trade: A Review and Meta‐analysis of Empirical Evidence," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(3), pages 595-617, September.
    12. Zhaohui Niu & Chris Milner & Saileshsingh Gunessee & Chang Liu, 2020. "Are nontariff measures and tariffs substitutes? Some panel data evidence," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 408-428, May.
    13. Stender, Frederik & Vogel, Tim, 2021. "Murky trade waters: Regional tariff commitments and non-tariff measures in Africa," IDOS Discussion Papers 13/2021, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    14. Mahdi Ghodsi, 2021. "Impact of Technical Barriers to Trade on the Trade in Goods in the Information and Communications Technology Sector: Differentiating by Aim of the Regulatory Measure," wiiw Working Papers 208, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    15. Mario Larch & Jeff Luckstead & Yoto V. Yotov, 2021. "Economic Sanctions and Agricultural Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 9410, CESifo.
    16. Amat Adarov & Mahdi Ghodsi, 2023. "Heterogeneous effects of nontariff measures on cross‐border investments: Bilateral firm‐level analysis," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 158-179, February.
    17. Fatima Olanike Kareem & Olayinka Idowu Kareem, 2021. "Employment Responses to EU Food Safety Regulations: A Gendered Perspective," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 33(6), pages 1899-1929, December.
    18. Jacob Wood & Jie Wu & Yilin Li & Jungsuk Kim, 2019. "The Impact of TBT and SPS Measures on Japanese and Korean Exports to China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-23, November.
    19. Soojung Ahn & Sandro Steinbach, 2023. "The impact of COVID‐19 trade measures on agricultural and food trade," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(2), pages 911-927, June.
    20. Lili Yan ING & Olivier CADOT, 2017. "Remaking Ad valorem equivalents of non-tariff measures in ASEAN," Working Papers DP-2017-09, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:jlofdr:317780. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fdrssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.