with rules relating to transparency and temporariness of measures. One reason why we have stressed that the data set distinguished between open-ended and time-bound measures is that such information is needed to assess performance considering international disciplines. The data set permits analysis of compliance with – and the effects of – applicable trade agreements. An example of such research is Hoekman et al. (2020), who investigate the relationship between the use of trade policy observed in the first 6 months of the pandemic and characteristics of national public procurement regimes, including membership of the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement and deep trade agreements that include provisions on public procurement. They find statistically strong associations between procurement regimes and use of trade policy.

A related research question concerns the potential impact of cooperation aimed at enhancing transparency. Several observers have pointed to the example of the Agricultural Monitoring and Information System (AMIS) as a possible explanation for the limited recourse to export restrictions on food – and a potential model for cooperation to generate information on production capacity and trends in markets for critical medical supplies (Hoekman, Fiorini and Yildirim, 2020). Does the way AMIS was designed and executed—maybe in terms of crops covered and information collected and made available—account for the smaller number of export controls observed in the food and agri-food sector? Here it would be important to understand where this transparency mechanism has teeth and where it shows up in the data.

# **5. Concluding remarks**

This paper presents new, high-frequency data on trade policy changes in two sectors that are critical during the COVID-19 pandemic: medical goods and medicines, and agricultural and food products. The data were collected on a weekly basis, and span the period from January 2 to mid-October 2020.<sup>16</sup> The data record the jurisdiction implementing the policy change, the direction of the measure (i.e. trade liberalizing or restrictive), the type of measure (e.g. export ban, tariff reduction), the timeline of the measure and the sectors covered by the policy.

The data reveal several stylized facts on trade policy changes over the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic:

- There was a big jump in trade policy activism starting in February 2020. This accelerated in March, with the initial increase occurring in tandem with the rise in the number of COVID-19 cases. At the global level, there is an approximate balance between temporary and open-ended measures, but there is significant heterogeneity at the regional/country level.

- Measures targeting medical products and PPE dominate, accounting for two-thirds of all trade measures taken. Food is less in focus. In terms of the value of 2019 trade covered, trade policy changes in medical goods outweigh those in food products by a factor of 3 or more.

- Export curbs in medical goods covered international trade worth $135 billion (of 2019 trade). Whereas import reforms in the same sector covered $165 billion. In the case of food and agri-food products, the comparable totals are $39 billion and $42 billion, respectively. Because these estimates are based on 2019 (i.e. pre-pandemic) trade data, they may understate the magnitudes of implicated trade, especially for medical products.

- Countries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with different combinations of export controls and import liberalization measures. Some countries acted both on the restrictive and liberalizing side creating long term changes in their pre-COVID trade policy structures for the food and

> 16  Weekly data are available through October 15, 2020. Looking forward, the data will continue to be compiled monthly.

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