Abstract

This study documents a substantial decline in the exports of major trading nations taking place in March 2020. Accounting for product-specific seasonality and annual trends, the data suggest a drop by 38 per cent in France, about a quarter in Turkey and Germany, and 12 per cent in the US, relative to their historical averages. Detailed export data from Turkey, disaggregated by financing terms, show another striking pattern. Flows using bank intermediation which eliminates or reduces the risk of non-payment or non-arrival of prepaid goods, such as letters of credit or documentary collection, appear to have been much more resilient to the current downturn relative to flows using other financing terms. These findings suggest that access to trade finance is vital during times of heightened uncertainty.

中文翻译：

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贸易融资很重要：COVID-19危机的证据

摘要

这项研究表明，2020年3月主要贸易国的出口出现了大幅下降。考虑到特定产品的季节性和年度趋势，数据表明法国下降了38％，土耳其和德国下降了约四分之一，在美国，相对于历史平均水平为12％。来自土耳其的详细出口数据（按融资条件分类）显示了另一种引人注目的模式。相对于使用其他融资条件的资金流动，使用银行中介的资金流动消除或减少了未付款或未到货的预付款商品（例如信用证或单据托收）的风险，似乎对当前的衰退更具弹性。这些发现表明，在不确定性加剧的时期，获取贸易融资至关重要。