An Empirical Study on the Relationship of COVID-19 Pandemic and Korea's Exports in the Air and Spacecraft and Related Machinery Industry

This empirical study is to investigate the relationship of COVID-19 pandemic and Korea's exports in the air and spacecraft and related machinery industry. The quarterly panel data on Korea's exports to fifty three countries in the air and spacecraft and related machinery industry are used for analysis. Two independent empirical analyses have been conducted in the first period from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021, and in the second period from the second quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2023. The empirical model and the econometric technique employed in this study are the gravity model and PPML(Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood) respectively. The empirical results have showed the interesting findings. Korea's COVID-19 outbreak status has negatively influenced on Korea's exports in the air and spacecraft and related machinery industry, whereas that of Korea's export partner countries has positively influenced on Korea's exports in the corresponding industry. The results of this research show that the impacts of COVID-19 on Korea's exports in the air and spacecraft and related machinery industry are different from the existing empirical results of the manufacturing industry and the pharmaceutical Industry.