This paper exploits the three eastward expansions of NATO after the Cold War as a quasi‐natural experiment to investigate the relationship between military alliance and trade. To identify the impact of alliance membership on trade, we adopt the difference‐in‐differences method to estimate a gravity model with global bilateral trade data from 1995 to 2015. The results show that joining NATO has a positive effect on new member countries' exports, as well as an enhancing effect on both imports and exports between old and new members. Further analysis of subdivided data reveals that formal alliance between old and new members boosts bilateral trade of security‐sensitive products, facilitates specialisation and helps mitigate trade disputes, suggesting that deepening of mutual strategic trust is a possible channel of influence.

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This study analyzes the impact of the exports of China’s masks and other antivirus supplies on the people from the importing countries who are subject to the severe pandemic during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Our main data include the COVID-19 cases data of countries around the world published by Johns Hopkins University and the data of China’s exports of masks or other antivirus supplies to these countries from the Chinese Customs Database. Using cross-sectional data of about 180 countries and multiple regression analysis, we find that the antivirus supplies from China have played an important role in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, China’s masks are shipped to countries around the world, and these masks can improve the recovery rate and protect people against the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings are relevant to global efforts in the COVID-19 pandemic containment.

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