ban, etc.). A unique feature of the project is that it includes information on the date of announcement, implementation, and removal (if applicable) of each reported measure.<sup>10</sup> As of mid-July 2020, the data set documented 414 trade policy measures taken by over 100 distinct jurisdictions. The measures include 209 measures liberalizing imports of protective equipment, medical supplies and medicines implemented in 106 jurisdictions and 191 export controls imposed by 91 countries for the same set of products. The most common liberalizing measures were reduction in import tariffs, while export bans were the most common restrictive measure across countries. Data on trade policy measures are available for 133 countries.

We focus on the first seven months of 2020 because this is the period in which most trade policy measures were imposed. Our research question is whether attributes of prevailing PP regimes are associated with the imposition of trade measures. While the supply of essential goods was largely fixed in the initial period of the crisis, over time, as supply responds to increased demand, this will attenuate the perceived need for exports controls and import liberalization, confounding inferences regarding the possible relationship between PP regulation and use of trade policy in the initial period of a public emergency which is what we are interested in. The GTA data set shows that some governments began to roll back trade measures starting in June 2020, a pattern that strengthened in the summer and fall of 2020 (see Evenett et al. 2020).<sup>11</sup> A weekly evolution of trade restrictive measures on imports and exports of medical products according to the date of implementation of the measures, shows that the number of restrictive measures on medical products increased exponentially as of the end of March (Figure 1). This coincides with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing demand for medical products worldwide. There were a limited number of liberalizing measures implemented for medical products during the first two months of the year. However, the trend changed drastically as of the end of March, when this number started growing rapidly: the number of such measures more than doubled over a month from 77 measures at the end of March to 174 measures at the end of April. This trend is noteworthy as the period of the spike coincides with the “acknowledged” outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing demand for protective equipment and medical products worldwide.

Close to half of all measures were implemented in March 2020. Starting in May there is a gradual decline in the imposition of measures. Based on countries and measures where a removal date is explicitly mentioned in the database, restrictive measures were implemented for a shorter duration (58 days) on average than liberalizing measures (71 days). Within these distributions, the duration of restrictive measures for medical products ranges from as brief as 2 days in the case of an export ban imposed by Slovenia to 137 days for an export ban imposed by Azerbaijan (Figure 2). Similarly, for liberalizing measures the duration ranges from as brief as 11 days in the case of import tariff liberalization by the Dominican Republic to 104 days for import tariff liberalization by the Republic of South Korea.

> 10 Evenett et al. (2020) provide an overview of the pattern of trade policy activism that emerges from the data. The data can be accessed at: <u>https://www.globaltradealert.org/reports/54. The methodology used to collect and</u> validate the data, as well as a listing of the Harmonized System (HS) codes for the products covered by the exercise can be found at: https://globalgovernanceprogramme.eui.eu/wp- <u>content/uploads/2020/05/Methodologynote050420.pdf.</u>

> 11 The empirical analysis accounts for roll-back of measures during the period as we can distinguish between measures that were implemented and subsequently removed and those that remained in force as of July 2020.

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