Swiss trade during the COVID-19 pandemic: an early appraisal

Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics

Table 2 Correlates of Swiss exports between January and June 2020

% Change in exports compared to 2019	Monthly data					Quarterly data
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)	(9)	(10)
Consumer	4.57 ^∗				4.33 ⁺	5.31 ^∗				5.47 ^∗∗
Confidence (in SD)	(2.15)				(2.20)	(2.51)				(2.57)
Covid-19 cases		− 2.21 ^∗∗		− 2.23 ^∗∗	− 2.56		− 0.89 ^∗∗		− 0.86 ^∗∗	− 0.22
per 1000 people		(0.74)		(0.83)	(2.18)		(0.28)		(0.30)	(1.13)
Stringency index			− 0.02	0.02	− 0.07			− 0.10	− 0.08	− 0.22
countermeasures			(0.15)	(0.15)	(0.16)			(0.15)	(0.16)	(0.15)
R²	0.14	0.10	0.09	0.10	0.15	0.24	0.17	0.15	0.17	0.25
Trading partners	40	55	55	55	40	40	55	55	55	40
Observations	215	300	300	300	215	79	110	110	110	79

Notes: The dependent variable is the percentage change in monthly (col. 1–5) or quarterly (col. 6–10) exports compared to 2019. All models include time period fixed effects. Covid-19 cases per 1000 people denotes the increase in a country’s confirmed Covid-19 cases per 1000 inhabitants during that month/quarter. Stringency index countermeasures represents the average stringency score of a country during that month/quarter taking values between 0 (no measures) and 100 (maximum stringency). Consumer confidence represents the standardized monthly/quarterly deviation from the long-term mean in a country’s consumer confidence. We restrict the sample to countries with a minimum annual trade value of 500 million CHF and monthly trade values of at least 25 million CHF in 2019. Descriptive statistics are reported in Table 5 in the Appendix. Standard errors (in parentheses) are clustered by trading partners. ⁺p < 0.10, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01