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Has COVID-19 Changed China's Digital Trade?—Implications for Health Economics

Digital technologies have played a significant role in the defense against the COVID-19 pandemic. This development raises the question of whether digital technologies have helped Chinese exports recover quickly and even grow. To answer this question, we study monthly data on Chinese exports to 40 co...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hu, Feng, Qiu, Liping, Xi, Xun, Zhou, Haiyan, Hu, Tianyu, Su, Ning, Zhou, Haitao, Li, Xiaolei, Yang, Shaobo, Duan, Zhigang, Dong, Zenan, Wu, Zongjian, Zhou, Haibo, Zeng, Ming, Wan, Ting, Wei, Shaobin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8924300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35309208
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.831549
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author Hu, Feng
Qiu, Liping
Xi, Xun
Zhou, Haiyan
Hu, Tianyu
Su, Ning
Zhou, Haitao
Li, Xiaolei
Yang, Shaobo
Duan, Zhigang
Dong, Zenan
Wu, Zongjian
Zhou, Haibo
Zeng, Ming
Wan, Ting
Wei, Shaobin
author_facet Hu, Feng
Qiu, Liping
Xi, Xun
Zhou, Haiyan
Hu, Tianyu
Su, Ning
Zhou, Haitao
Li, Xiaolei
Yang, Shaobo
Duan, Zhigang
Dong, Zenan
Wu, Zongjian
Zhou, Haibo
Zeng, Ming
Wan, Ting
Wei, Shaobin
author_sort Hu, Feng
collection PubMed
description Digital technologies have played a significant role in the defense against the COVID-19 pandemic. This development raises the question of whether digital technologies have helped Chinese exports recover quickly and even grow. To answer this question, we study monthly data on Chinese exports to 40 countries/regions from January 2019 to June 2020 and covering 97 product categories. The study takes the COVID-19 outbreak as a natural experiment and treats digital trade products as the treatment group. Using a generalized difference-in-differences (DID) approach, we empirically investigate how this major global public health crisis and digital trade have influenced Chinese exports. Our empirical analysis reveals that the COVID-19 pandemic has inhibited China's export trade overall, digital trade has significantly promoted trade, and the supply mechanism has played a significant role in promoting the recovery of exports. Heterogeneity tests on destination countries/regions reveal that digital trade has significantly promoted exports to countries/regions with different income levels, with a more significant effect on low-risk destinations than on high-risk destinations. The sector heterogeneity test demonstrates that digital trade has enhanced the export recovery of sectors dealing in necessities for pandemic prevention. Other robustness tests, including parallel trend and placebo tests, support the above conclusions. Finally, we extend the research conclusions and discuss their implication for health economics and the practice of fighting COVID-19.
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spelling pubmed-89243002022-03-17 Has COVID-19 Changed China's Digital Trade?—Implications for Health Economics Hu, Feng Qiu, Liping Xi, Xun Zhou, Haiyan Hu, Tianyu Su, Ning Zhou, Haitao Li, Xiaolei Yang, Shaobo Duan, Zhigang Dong, Zenan Wu, Zongjian Zhou, Haibo Zeng, Ming Wan, Ting Wei, Shaobin Front Public Health Public Health Digital technologies have played a significant role in the defense against the COVID-19 pandemic. This development raises the question of whether digital technologies have helped Chinese exports recover quickly and even grow. To answer this question, we study monthly data on Chinese exports to 40 countries/regions from January 2019 to June 2020 and covering 97 product categories. The study takes the COVID-19 outbreak as a natural experiment and treats digital trade products as the treatment group. Using a generalized difference-in-differences (DID) approach, we empirically investigate how this major global public health crisis and digital trade have influenced Chinese exports. Our empirical analysis reveals that the COVID-19 pandemic has inhibited China's export trade overall, digital trade has significantly promoted trade, and the supply mechanism has played a significant role in promoting the recovery of exports. Heterogeneity tests on destination countries/regions reveal that digital trade has significantly promoted exports to countries/regions with different income levels, with a more significant effect on low-risk destinations than on high-risk destinations. The sector heterogeneity test demonstrates that digital trade has enhanced the export recovery of sectors dealing in necessities for pandemic prevention. Other robustness tests, including parallel trend and placebo tests, support the above conclusions. Finally, we extend the research conclusions and discuss their implication for health economics and the practice of fighting COVID-19. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8924300/ /pubmed/35309208 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.831549 Text en Copyright © 2022 Hu, Qiu, Xi, Zhou, Hu, Su, Zhou, Li, Yang, Duan, Dong, Wu, Zhou, Zeng, Wan and Wei. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Hu, Feng
Qiu, Liping
Xi, Xun
Zhou, Haiyan
Hu, Tianyu
Su, Ning
Zhou, Haitao
Li, Xiaolei
Yang, Shaobo
Duan, Zhigang
Dong, Zenan
Wu, Zongjian
Zhou, Haibo
Zeng, Ming
Wan, Ting
Wei, Shaobin
Has COVID-19 Changed China's Digital Trade?—Implications for Health Economics
title Has COVID-19 Changed China's Digital Trade?—Implications for Health Economics
title_full Has COVID-19 Changed China's Digital Trade?—Implications for Health Economics
title_fullStr Has COVID-19 Changed China's Digital Trade?—Implications for Health Economics
title_full_unstemmed Has COVID-19 Changed China's Digital Trade?—Implications for Health Economics
title_short Has COVID-19 Changed China's Digital Trade?—Implications for Health Economics
title_sort has covid-19 changed china's digital trade?—implications for health economics
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8924300/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35309208
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.831549
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