IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v213y2022ics0165176522000659.html

Port congestion, container shortages, and U.S. foreign trade

Author

Listed:
  • Steinbach, Sandro

Abstract

This paper assesses the U.S. foreign trade effects of port congestion and container shortages using event studies and monthly trade data at the port-product level. The results show that the U.S. exported 24.5 percent fewer containers between May and November 2021, amounting to export losses of -$15.7 billion. In addition, I document considerable heterogeneity between commodities, with chemical products, followed by transport equipment, machinery, and vegetable products facing the brunt of the economic damages. These estimates indicate how port congestion and container shortages undermine the competitiveness of U.S. businesses in foreign markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Steinbach, Sandro, 2022. "Port congestion, container shortages, and U.S. foreign trade," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:213:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522000659
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110392
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176522000659
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110392?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carter, Colin A. & Steinbach, Sandro, 2020. "The Impact of Retaliatory Tariffs on Agricultural and Food Trade," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304367, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Michael Weber, 2020. "How Did U.S. Consumers Use Their Stimulus Payments?," Working Papers 2020-109, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    3. Simon Freyaldenhoven & Christian Hansen & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2019. "Pre-event Trends in the Panel Event-Study Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(9), pages 3307-3338, September.
    4. Pablo Fajgelbaum & Pinelopi Goldberg & Patrick Kennedy & Amit Khandelwal & Daria Taglioni, 2024. "The US-China Trade War and Global Reallocations," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 295-312, June.
    5. Arita, Shawn & Grant, Jason & Sydow, Sharon & Beckman, Jayson, 2022. "Has global agricultural trade been resilient under coronavirus (COVID-19)? Findings from an econometric assessment of 2020," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    6. Aaron Flaaen & Ali Hortaçsu & Felix Tintelnot, 2020. "The Production Relocation and Price Effects of US Trade Policy: The Case of Washing Machines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(7), pages 2103-2127, July.
    7. repec:boc:pcon20:13 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Woan Foong Wong, 2022. "The Round Trip Effect: Endogenous Transport Costs and International Trade," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 127-166, October.
    9. Sergio Correia & Paulo Guimarães & Tom Zylkin, 2020. "Fast Poisson estimation with high-dimensional fixed effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 20(1), pages 95-115, March.
    10. Pablo D Fajgelbaum & Pinelopi K Goldberg & Patrick J Kennedy & Amit K Khandelwal, 2020. "The Return to Protectionism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(1), pages 1-55.
    11. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2015. "A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 317-372.
    12. Jason H. Grant & Shawn Arita & Charlotte Emlinger & Robert Johansson & Chaoping Xie, 2021. "Agricultural exports and retaliatory trade actions: An empirical assessment of the 2018/2019 trade conflict," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(2), pages 619-640, June.
    13. José Luis Montiel Olea & Mikkel Plagborg‐Møller, 2019. "Simultaneous confidence bands: Theory, implementation, and an application to SVARs," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(1), pages 1-17, January.
    14. Sergio Correia & Paulo Guimar~aes & Thomas Zylkin, 2019. "Verifying the existence of maximum likelihood estimates for generalized linear models," Papers 1903.01633, arXiv.org, revised May 2026.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Jingling & Yu, Weiping & Fu, Xiaowen & Liu, Jiaguo, 2026. "Assessing the port resilience under the Red Sea crisis," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    2. Carter, Colin A. & Steinbach, Sandro, 2024. "Did grain futures prices overreact to the Russia–Ukraine war due to herding?," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    3. repec:ags:aaea22:335482 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Steinbach, Sandro & Yildirim, Yasin, . "Grain Futures Market Response to the Black Sea Grain Initiative," German Journal of Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department for Agricultural Economics, vol. 73(2).
    5. Ahn, Soojung & Kim, Dongin & Steinbach, Sandro, 2023. "Global Grain Trade Implications of the Russia-Ukraine War," 2023 Annual Meeting, July 23-25, Washington D.C. 335482, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Steinbach, Sandro, 2023. "The Russia–Ukraine war and global trade reallocations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    7. Alexander Chupin & Dmitry Morkovkin & Marina Bolsunovskaya & Anna Boyko & Alexander Leksashov, 2024. "Techno-Economic Sustainability Potential of Large-Scale Systems: Forecasting Intermodal Freight Transportation Volumes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-17, February.
    8. Sandro Steinbach & Xiting Zhuang, 2025. "US agricultural exports and the 2022 Mississippi River drought," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(1), pages 289-303, January.
    9. Sandro Steinbach & Xiting Zhuang, 2023. "The impact of maritime shipping disruptions on US tree nut exports and inventories," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 904-911, July.
    10. Carter, Colin A. & Steinbach, Sandro & Zhuang, Xiting, 2022. "Global Container Trade Disruptions and U.S. Agricultural Exports," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322364, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    11. Goyal, Raghav & Steinbach, Sandro, 2023. "Agricultural commodity markets in the wake of the black sea grain initiative," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    12. Guerrero, David & Niérat, Patrick & Thill, Jean-Claude, 2023. "Connecting short and long distance perspectives in freight transportation: Introduction to a special issue," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    13. repec:ags:aaea22:335476 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Soojung Ahn & Dongin Kim & Sandro Steinbach, 2023. "The impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on grain and oilseed trade," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(1), pages 291-299, January.
    15. Colin A. Carter & Sandro Steinbach & Xiting Zhuang, 2023. "Supply chain disruptions and containerized agricultural exports from California ports," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(2), pages 1051-1071, June.
    16. Carter, Colin A. & Steinbach, Sandro & Zhuang, Xiting, 2022. "Global Shipping Container Disruptions and U.S. Agricultural Exports," Working Papers 320397, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    17. Sandro Steinbach & Yasin Yildirim, 2024. "Agricultural commodity market response to Russia's withdrawal from the grain deal," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(3), pages 1004-1016, September.
    18. Haoqing Wang & Yan Liu & Yuquan Du & Shuaian Wang, 2025. "Optimal refund policy design for ship berthing appointment mechanism," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 347(3), pages 1643-1670, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carter, Colin A. & Steinbach, Sandro & Zhuang, Xiting, 2022. "Global Container Trade Disruptions and U.S. Agricultural Exports," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322364, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Carter, Colin A. & Steinbach, Sandro & Zhuang, Xiting, 2022. "Global Shipping Container Disruptions and U.S. Agricultural Exports," Working Papers 320397, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    3. Colin A. Carter & Sandro Steinbach & Xiting Zhuang, 2023. "Supply chain disruptions and containerized agricultural exports from California ports," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(2), pages 1051-1071, June.
    4. Steinbach, Sandro, 2023. "The Russia–Ukraine war and global trade reallocations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    5. Ahn, Soojung & Steinbach, Sandro, 2022. "COVID-19 Trade Actions and Their Impact on the Agricultural and Food Sector," 2023 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 6-8, 2023, New Orleans, Louisiana 316789, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Carter, Colin A. & Steinbach, Sandro, 2024. "Did grain futures prices overreact to the Russia–Ukraine war due to herding?," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    7. repec:ags:aaea22:335482 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Blanchard, Emily J. & Bown, Chad P. & Chor, Davin, 2024. "Did Trump’s trade war impact the 2018 election?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    9. Steinbach, Sandro, 2023. "The Corporatization of Veterinary Medicine: An Empirical Analysis of Its Impact on Independent Practices," 2023 Annual Meeting, July 23-25, Washington D.C. 335481, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Agustina Giraudy & Ernesto Stein & Francisco Urdinez & Victor Zuluaga, 2025. "Chinese Investment in Mexico: Trade Wars, Nearshoring, and Place-Based," Working Paper Series of the School of Government and Public Transformation 11, School of Governement and Public Transformation.
    11. Kim, Dongin & Steinbach, Sandro & Zurita, Carlos, 2024. "Deep trade agreements and agri-food global value chain integration," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    12. Soojung Ahn & Dongin Kim & Sandro Steinbach, 2023. "The impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on grain and oilseed trade," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(1), pages 291-299, January.
    13. Yu, Jisang & Villoria, Nelson B. & Hendricks, Nathan P., 2022. "The incidence of foreign market tariffs on farmland rental rates," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    14. Felipe Benguria, 2023. "The global impact of the US–China trade war: firm-level evidence," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 159(4), pages 827-851, November.
    15. Benguria, Felipe & Saffie, Felipe, 2024. "Escaping the trade war: Finance and relational supply chains in the adjustment to trade policy shocks," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    16. Abberger, Klaus & Bibaj, Arbërim & Gersbach, Hans & Perakis, Alexis & Rathke, Alexander & Sarferaz, Samad & Walsh, Kieran James, 2026. "Tariffs and Firm Expectations," CEPR Discussion Papers 21269, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    17. Goyal, Raghav & Steinbach, Sandro, 2023. "Agricultural commodity markets in the wake of the black sea grain initiative," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    18. Shota Miki & Yoichiro Tamanyu, 2024. "On the Restructuring of Global Semiconductor Supply Chains," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 24-E-6, Bank of Japan.
    19. Anderson, Kym, 2022. "Trade-related food policies in a more volatile climate and trade environment," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    20. Tian, Wei & Yu, Miaojie & Zheng, Chunru, 2026. "China-US trade war: Firm import-export linkage along global supply chains," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    21. Alejandro G. Graziano & Monika Sztajerowska & Christian Volpe Martincus & Alejandro Graziano, 2024. "Trading Places: How Trade Policy Is Reshaping Multinational Firms’ Location," CESifo Working Paper Series 11514, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:213:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522000659. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.