贸易促进组织对出口的影响：来自新冠肺炎疫情的证据

11182 The Impact of Trade PromotionOrganizations on Exports Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic Yewon ChoiAna FernandesArti GroverLeonardo IacovoneMarcelo Olarreaga Public Disclosure Authorized International Finance CorporationFinance, Competitiveness and Investment Global Department &Development Research GroupAugust 2025 Policy Research Working Paper11182 Abstract This paper examines the impact of trade promotion organi-zations on exports during the COVID-19 pandemic usinga World Bank survey. The results suggest that increasedtrade promotion organization budgets significantly boostedexports during downturns but had no effect during the recov-ery phase. Interestingly, e-commerce programs adopted by trade promotion organizations negatively affected exportsduring downturns as they diverted resources away fromproductive support, especially for sectors not intensive inonline trade. These findings suggest that countercyclicaltrade promotion organizations budgets may enhance traderesilience during similar global shocks. This paper is a product of the International Finance Corporation, the Finance, Competitiveness and Investment GlobalDepartment, and the Development Research Group. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access toits research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papersare also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at agrover1@worldbank.org. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thoseof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank andits affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. The Impact of Trade Promotion Organisations onExports: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic∗ Yewon Choi†Ana Fernandes‡Arti Grover§ Leonardo Iacovone¶Marcelo Olarreaga‖ Keywords:TradePromotionOrganizations,Exports,COVIDpandemic.JELclassification:F13,F14. 1. Introduction Using a novel survey of trade promotion organizations (TPOs) conducted by the WorldBank during the COVID-19 pandemic, we assess the impact of changes in TPOs’ budgets oncountry exports. Our estimates indicate that increases in TPOs’ budgets helped exportingcountries stabilize exports when hit by declines in world trade but played no systematic rolewhen global trade recovered. The positive returns to export promotion during downturnsin world markets was mainly driven by the impact of export promotion on the product anddestination intensive margins, with little or no impact on the extensive margins. Surprisingly,the adoption of e-commerce programs by TPOs hurt export performance during downturnsand had no impact during the recovery. These results are important for at least three reasons. First, TPOs did not have a homo-geneous response during the COVID-19 pandemic. Choi et al. (2023) show that TPOs inhigh-income countries experienced budget increases, whereas TPOs in low-income coun-tries saw their budgets decline even after lockdown measures eased.1Our findings suggestthat the response of TPOs in low-income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic was notadequate. The introduction of counter-cyclical budgets that expand during downturns maysignificantly enhance the effectiveness of TPOs in fostering trade resilience during adverseeconomic shocks. Second, one of the most popular export promotion tools used during the pandemic involvedtraining and mentoring on e-commerce (Choi et al., 2023). This was also one of the TPOs’activities with the lowest expenditure shares, suggesting that such programs were not onlypopular but also relatively cheap. Our results suggest, however, that they were not effectivein promoting exports. Allocating resources to other export promotion activities would haveyielded higher returns in terms of exports, at least during downturns in world markets. Finally, while there is an important literature suggesting that TPOs mostly help firmsalong their extensive margins, helping them become exporters or enter new markets anddestinations (Volpe Martincus and Carballo (2008), Cruz (2014), Lederman et al. (2016)and Broocks and van Biesebroeck (2017)), to our knowledge, there is no evidence on returns to export promotion along the extensive and intensive margins at the aggregate level. Wefill this gap. Although our results seem to contradict the findings of the literature on returnsto export promotion using firm-level data, this is not the case. We find that export retu