Globalization and infectious diseases: Evidence on the reproduction rate of the COVID-19 pandemic

In this paper we investigated the impact of globalization on infectious diseases and found that export values contributed greatly to the reproduction rate of the COVID-19 outbreak. We collected the number of new cases and deaths from the Worldometer and trade data from the International Trade Center. Our sample covered more than 100 countries. In addition, we applied the epidemiology model, namely the SIR model, to relate globalization to the infection rate. Our results indicated that high export values contributed to high infection rate, especially among high income countries. Finally the impacts were not identical across sectors: they ranged from positive in some sectors to insignificant and even negative in others.