Author(s)

Ruitong Liu, Binning Yang

Corresponding Author

Ruitong Liu

ABSTRACT

In the spring of 2020, COVID-19 outbreaks began to spread globally, thereby impacting the economies of various nations. Major enterprises were forced to suspend their businesses, resulting in a stagnation of import and export trade, as well as negative economic growth. The aims of this paper are: to provide an overall understanding of the macroeconomic impacts of the pandemic in various countries, to generate a comprehensive description of global economic trends during COVID-19, and to map out three plausible hypotheses to account for these trends. The paper first presents a general plot of monthly and standardized monthly export data to demonstrate the various extents to which Coronavirus has affected each country. Countries whose main exports comprise the manufacturing and the automobile sector, including Japan, South Korea, and some European countries, have seen significant reductions in their respective exports. Then, a basic linear regression model is utilized to evaluate the significance of the virus’ impact on each country. Next, this paper illustrates the likely correlation between the degree of severity of COVID-19 in each country and three factors: population density, GDP per capita, and the socio-cultural aspect of individualism. The paper’s first hypothesis is that a country with a strong economy, as represented by GDP, will be less affected. Second, the spread of Coronavirus is largely dependent on a country’s population density, with India, for example, being more particularly vulnerable to outbreaks. Finally, those countries with a strong individualistic ideology have a more extensive moving range than non-individualistic countries. Consequently, it is suggested that all countries should strictly control the epidemic and formulate policies to deal with trade issues as soon as possible, so as to promptly resume the development of imports and exports in international trade.

KEYWORDS

Coronavirus, International Trade, Export, Gross Domestic Product, Individualism, Population density, COVID-19