Who sends me face masks? Evidence for the impacts of COVID-19 on international trade in medical goods.

This study empirically investigates what kinds of countries imported and exported medical products during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine the bilateral trade values of medical products traded among 35 reporting countries and 250 partner countries between January and August in both 2019 and 2020. We shed light on four kinds of bilateral linkages, including political ties (captured by voting similarity in the United Nations), economic ties (existence of trade agreements), demographic ties (migrants) and geographical ties (distance). Our findings can be summarised as follows. An increase in COVID-19 burden leads to decreases in exports of medical products. However, such a decrease is smaller when exporting to countries with closer political, economic or geographical ties. In contrast, demographic ties play a key role in the import of personal protective products. Immigrants receive face masks from relatives in their home country when the immigrant's country of residence is strongly impacted by COVID-19.