Food-based bilateral trade balance performances between the United States and Canada under COVID-19

The food industry has been greatly impacted by COVID-19, causing governments to restrict food exports to prevent shortages. A negative food trade balance reveals a country's dependence on imports and underscores the significance of a sound food policy. Hence, for the first time, this study examines the J-curve hypothesis for the U.S. with Canada at the state rather than country level and creates maps based on the findings. The approach of this study differs from all empirical studies using country-level J-curve analyses, because the U.S. may require a state level analysis since its states differ in terms of economic-population sizes, tax rates, and administrative structures. For this aim, this study employs the linear and nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approaches. The results indicate that while only 8 out of 47 U.S. states support the food-based asymmetric J-curve hypothesis, 15 U.S. states support the asymmetric inverse J-curve hypothesis. Additionally, 9 U.S. states support the food-based symmetric J-curve hypothesis, and 2 U.S. states support the symmetric inverse J-curve hypothesis. Based on these results, policymakers of U.S. states where the J-curve hypothesis is not supported should review their food-based bilateral trade policies with Canada.

Graphical abstract

These maps depict the U.S. states in green and red, indicating support for the J-curve and inverse J-curve hypotheses, respectively. The map on the left was generated using the linear model (symmetric approach), while the map on the right was generated using the nonlinear model (asymmetric approach).