Assessing the Impact of Covid-19 on Trade: a Machine Learning Counterfactual Analysis

The Institute of Economics will hold a seminar meeting as part of its Seminar Series on Tuesday, May 24, 2022: Francesco Serti from IMT Lucca will present the paper "Assessing the Impact of Covid-19 on Trade: a Machine Learning Counterfactual Analysis".

Abstract:

By interpreting exporters’ dynamics as a complex learning process in a generalized shock context (COVID-19), we built on recent development in causal Machine Learning (ML) to investigate the effectiveness of different ML techniques in predicting firms’ trade. Predictions are used to reconstruct the counterfactual distribution of firms’ trade absent the COVID-19. Specifically, we focus on the probability of Colombian firms surviving in the export market under two different scenarios: a COVID-19 setting and a non-COVID-19 counterfactual situation. On average, we find that the COVID-19 shock decreased a firm’s probability of surviving in the export market by about 20 p.p. in April 2020. We study treatment effect heterogeneity by employing a classification analysis that compares the characteristics of the firms on the tails of the estimated distribution of the individual treatment effects.

The seminar will be held in blended mode. In person participation is possible and available seats are allocated on a first come first served basis. For online participation please use the following link.