Seminarios

Abstract: When COVID-19 hit, the combined supply and demand shock was expected to lead to a dramatic collapse in trade. However, trade in goods bounced back quite rapidly—faster than it has in previous global slowdowns like the global financial crisis. But trade in services still remains sluggish. And some sectors that participate heavily in global value chains, such as automobiles, experienced larger and longer disruptions. Along with on-going disruptions in supply chain logistics, this has prompted calls among policy makers to bring more production on-shore, which would lead to permanent changes in the structure of global value chains. In this context, the chapter investigates the following questions: (1) what were the main drivers of trade in the pandemic; in particular domestic pandemic intensity and pandemic containment policies, as well as international spillovers on trade from pandemic containment policies; (2) how did key GVCs adapt to the pandemic; and (3) what can governments do to help strengthen global value chains against future disruptions, which may arise not just from future health crises, but also from conflict, cyberattacks, or from climate-related weather events?