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Time as a Trade Barrier

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  • Hummels, David

Abstract

International trade occurs in physical space and moving goods requires time. This paper examines the importance of time as a trade barrier, estimates the magnitude of time costs, and relates these to patterns of trade and the international organization of production. Estimates indicate that each additional day spent in transport reduces the probability that the US will source from that country by 1 – 1.5 percent. Conditional on exporting country, estimates directly identify a willingness-to-pay for time savings using variation across exporters and commodities in the relative price / speed tradeoff for air and ocean shipping. Each day saved in shipping time is worth 0.8 percent ad-valorem for manufactured goods. Relative declines over time in air shipping prices make time-savings less expensive, providing a compelling explanation for aggregate trade growth, compositional effects in trade growth, as well as growth in time-intensive forms of integration such as vertical specialization. Specifically, the advent of fast transport (air shipping and faster ocean vessels) is equivalent to reducing tariffs on manufactured goods from 32% to 9% between 1950-1998.

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File URL: http://www.gtap.agecon.purdue.edu/resources/res_display.asp?RecordID=1152
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University in its series GTAP Working Papers with number 1152.

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Date of creation: 2001
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Handle: RePEc:gta:workpp:1152

Note: GTAP Working Paper No. 18
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  1. James Harrigan & Carolyn Evans, 2004. "Distance, Time and Specialization," Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings 640, Econometric Society.
  2. Simeon Djankov & Caroline Freund & Cong S. Pham, 2010. "Trading on Time," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(1), pages 166-173, February.
  3. David L. Hummels & Georg Schaur, 2009. "Hedging Price Volatility Using Fast Transport," NBER Working Papers 15154, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Cristea, Anca & Hummels, David & Puzzello, Laura & Avetisyan, Misak, 2013. "Trade and the greenhouse gas emissions from international freight transport," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 153-173.
  5. Thomas Chaney, 2008. "Distorted Gravity: The Intensive and Extensive Margins of International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1707-21, September.
  6. Amit Khandelwal, 2007. "The Long and Short (of) Quality Ladders," 2007 Meeting Papers 244, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  7. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Hummels, David & Lugovskyy, Volodymyr & Skiba, Alexandre, 2009. "The trade reducing effects of market power in international shipping," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 84-97, May.
  9. Hallak, Juan Carlos, 2006. "Product quality and the direction of trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 238-265, January.
  10. David Hummels & Rasmus Jørgensen & Jakob R. Munch & Chong Xiang, 2011. "The Wage Effects of Offshoring: Evidence from Danish Matched Worker-Firm Data," NBER Working Papers 17496, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Choi, Yo Chul & Hummels, David & Xiang, Chong, 2009. "Explaining import quality: The role of the income distribution," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 265-275, April.
  12. Elhanan Helpman & Marc Melitz & Yona Rubinstein, 2007. "Estimating Trade Flows: Trading Partners and Trading Volumes," NBER Working Papers 12927, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Juan Carlos Hallak & Peter K. Schott, 2011. "Estimating Cross-Country Differences in Product Quality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 126(1), pages 417-474.
  14. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2001. "The growth of world trade: tariffs, transport costs, and income similarity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-27, February.
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