世界银行-疫情世界中的贸易促进组织（英）

INTERNATIONAL TRADETrade promotion organisations in the pandemic worldYewon Choia, Ana Fernandesa, Arti Groverb, Leonardo Iacovonea and Marcelo OlarreagacaWorld Bank, Washington, USA; bInternational Finance Corporation, World Bank Group, Washington, USA; cUniversity of Geneva and CEPR, Geneva, SwitzerlandABSTRACTA 2021–22 Survey of Trade Promotion Organisations (TPOs) conducted by the World Bank to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their functioning uncovers significant heterogeneity in TPOs’ characteristics across countries, but also income levels. This led to different responses to the pandemic in terms of changes in TPOs’ budgets, the adoption of a COVID recovery plan, and the implementation of virtual programs to help exporters. High-income countries experienced higher increases in budget and were more likely to adopt COVID recovery plans and virtual tools than low-income countries. Using the gravity model, we find that the behaviour of TPOs in high-income countries was correlated with higher exportsARTICLE HISTORY Received 6 March 2025 Accepted 2 July 2025 KEYWORDS COVID-19; crisis; recovery; trade promotion1. IntroductionThe COVID pandemic was a major shock to the global economy. Global trade declined dramatically at the onset of the pandemic (Brenton et al., 2022) but trade bounced back sharply from late 2020 onward (Meijerink et al., 2020). Surveys of firms around the world, namely the World Bank’s Business Pulse Surveys, documented their responses to the COVID shock, including their access to and use of government support programs (e.g., Cirera et al., 2021; Constantinescu et al., 2022). Despite the key role of government agencies that promote trade – Trade Promotion Organisations (TPOs) – highlighted in a recent survey by Srhoj et al. (2020), little is known about the impact of the pandemic on their activities. To address this gap, the World Bank implemented a survey of TPOs in 57 countries between fall 2021 and spring 2022 with the objective of better understanding their responses to the COVID pandemic.The early literature in the 1990s was critical of TPOs’ capacity in developing countries to promote exports (Hogan et al., 1991), as they tended to be inadequately funded, lacked leadership, and were too bureaucratic and not client-oriented, while hiring staff with links to the government instead of the export sector. However, as TPOs reformed, the more recent literature suggests that they can successfully promote exports when sufficiently funded (Lederman et al., 2010), or when focusing on firms’ extensive rather than intensive export margins, both at the market, product and exporter/non-exporter levels (e.g., Broocks & van Biesebroeck, 2017; Cruz, 2014; Martincus & Carballo, 2008).1 TPO returns are also higher when they spend a large share of their budget on marketing activities in a few sectorso (Olarreaga et al., 2020), or when TPO activities are combined with investment promotion (Harding & Javorcik, 2012). Trade mobili