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.
Published on July 06, 2020
In series:OECD Trade Policy Papersview more titles