Decisiones gubernamentales para contener la pandemia y sus efectos en el comercio mundial de mercancías

Abstract

The outbreak and rapid spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) deepened the slowdown in international trade, as decisions taken by governments to contain the spread of the virus hurt economic activity by slowing production or even stopping it altogether. The objective of this article is to analyze the level of severity of the restrictive public health measures applied by governments to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of these decisions on world merchandise trade. The strictness index is used as an indicator of the severity of the measures applied by the countries, calculated daily based on the score of nine metrics, whose values range between 0 and 100; as well as the annual growth rates of world merchandise trade. The results reveal that most countries recorded the strictest and longest lockdowns when there were no vaccines, simultaneously experiencing sharp declines, to varying degrees, in their merchandise trade growth rates; In conclusion, it is observed that, as the vaccination campaigns progressed, the end of the confinement was closer, as was the recovery of economic-commercial activity and employment.