Trading on Time

By Simeon Djankov, Caroline Freund, Cong Thanh Pham. Review of Economics and Statistics, 2006

922 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We determine how time delays affect trade, using newly collected data on the days it takes to move standard cargo from the factory gate to the ship in 98 countries. We estimate a difference gravity equation and find that each additional day that a product is delayed prior to being shipped reduces trade by more than 1. Put differently, each day is equivalent to a country distancing itself from its trade partners by about 70 km on average. We also find that delays have a relatively greater impact on exports of time-sensitive goods, such as perishable agricultural products.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c9e23cd4b7e89a4baaa3a2acbae11f197aa9488f

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Citations in the corpus

Services Trade and Policy (2010, background): “There has recently been extensive work on trade costs (e.g., Anderson and van Wincoop, 2004; Djankov et al. 2006) but this has mostly neglected the role of services as a determinant of such costs.”
Why trade facilitation matters to Africa1 (2009, positive): “…costs for firms that are slower to market and may lose contracts with importers, as well as higher storage fees at the port of entry, for example Djankov et al. (2009) find that each day of delay at customs is equivalent to a country distancing itself from its trading partners by an additional…”
To What Extent Are High-Quality Logistics Services Trade Facilitating? (2011, background): “Djankov et al. (2010) using aggregate bilateral trade flows find a statistically and economically significant reduction in seaborne exports when there are longer export times and this matters more for time-sensitive perishable goods.”
Export Performance and Trade Facilitation Reform: Hard and Soft Infrastructure (2010, background): “Regarding more-specific dimensions of trade facilitation, such as the time to trade, Djankov, Freund, and Pham (2006) find that, on average, each additional day a product is 9 delayed prior to being shipped reduces trade by at least 1 percent.”
Estimating the effects of non‐discriminatory trade policies within structural gravity models (2017, background): “Djankov et al. (2010) estimate the impact of the ratio of time to export of two countries exporting to a third country by using the ratio of the two countries’ exports.”
Does aid for trade enhance export performance? Investigating on the infrastructure channel (2012, positive): “Another comparative costs of exporting due to internal constraints is the quality of institutions, , in particular for developing countries (Redding and Venables, 2003; Redding i c , 2004; Djankov et al. , 2006; Francois and Manchin, 2007).”
Facilitating international production networks: The role of trade logistics (2012, neutral): “Nordas, Pinali, and Geloso Grosso (2006) explicitly consider trade in intermediates, while Djankov, Pham, and Freund (2010) split the data between time-sensitive and time-insensitive products.”
Determinants of Global Value Chain Participation: Cross-Country Evidence (2020, positive): “Similar magnitudes for the cost of a one-day delay in inland transit are found by Djankov, Freund, and Pham (2010).”
International Trade, Risk and the Role of Banks (2017, neutral): “47For details on the variable, see Djankov et al. (2010).”