IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/pugtwp/331578.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hedging Price Volatility Using Fast Transport

Author

Listed:
  • Schaur, Georg

Abstract

Ocean transportation in international trade imposes a time lag between the departure and arrival of a shipment. This arrival lag creates a problem for firms selling in markets with volatile demand. Specifically, the quantity a firm ships via ocean at a given time may not maximize profits when it arrives. This paper examines whether fast but expensive transportation hedges this uncertainty. Fast air shipments allow a firm to wait until the uncertainty is revealed, meaning that high demand volatility urges greater air shipments. On the other hand, a higher price for air shipment raises the cost of waiting and causes a firm to choose greater ocean quantities to minimize the transport bill. The model in this paper identifies the tradeoff between uncertainty and transportation costs. Monthly data for US imports of merchandise separated by transport mode confirm the predictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Schaur, Georg, 2007. "Hedging Price Volatility Using Fast Transport," Conference papers 331578, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:pugtwp:331578
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/331578/files/3312.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David L. Hummels & Georg Schaur, 2013. "Time as a Trade Barrier," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(7), pages 2935-2959, December.
    2. Micco, Alejandro & Serebrisky, Tomas, 2006. "Competition regimes and air transport costs: The effects of open skies agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 25-51, September.
    3. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226304557 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. David Hummels, 2007. "Transportation Costs and International Trade in the Second Era of Globalization," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 131-154, Summer.
    5. Harrigan, James & Venables, Anthony J., 2006. "Timeliness and agglomeration," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 300-316, March.
    6. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2011. "Robust Inference With Multiway Clustering," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 238-249, April.
    7. Aizenman, Joshua, 2004. "Endogenous pricing to market and financing costs," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 691-712, May.
    8. Robert J. Gordon, 1990. "The Measurement of Durable Goods Prices," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number gord90-1.
    9. Marshall Fisher & Ananth Raman, 1996. "Reducing the Cost of Demand Uncertainty Through Accurate Response to Early Sales," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 44(1), pages 87-99, February.
    10. W. J. Baumol & H. D. Vinod, 1970. "An Inventory Theoretic Model of Freight Transport Demand," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(7), pages 413-421, March.
    11. Carolyn L. Evans & James Harrigan, 2005. "Distance, Time, and Specialization: Lean Retailing in General Equilibrium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 292-313, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. repec:idb:brikps:7994 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Dettmer, Bianka & Freytag, Andreas & Draper, Peter, 2014. "Air Cargo beyond Trade Barriers in Africa," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 29, pages 95-138.
    3. Christian Volpe Martincus, 2016. "Out of the Border Labyrinth: An Assessment of Trade Facilitation Initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 96856, February.
    4. Miren Lafourcade & Jacques-François Thisse, 2011. "New Economic Geography: The Role of Transport Costs," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Blyde, Juan & Molina, Danielken, 2015. "Logistic infrastructure and the international location of fragmented production," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 319-332.
    6. Alberto Behar & Anthony J. Venables, 2011. "Transport Costs and International Trade," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Chu Ping Lo, 2018. "China's New Silk Road and China-EU Trade," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 19(2), pages 683-701, November.
    8. Volpe Martincus, Christian & Carballo, Jerónimo & Graziano, Alejandro, 2015. "Customs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 119-137.
    9. Volpe Martincus, Christian, 2016. "Out of the Border Labyrinth: An Assessment of Trade Facilitation Initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 7994, November.
    10. Miren Lafourcade & Jacques-François Thisse, 2008. "New economic geography: A guide to transport analysis," Working Papers halshs-00586878, HAL.
    11. Lux, Matthias, 2011. "Defying Gravity: The Substitutability of Transportation in International Trade," MPRA Paper 36395, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Feb 2012.
    12. Demet Yilmazkuday & Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2017. "The role of direct flights in trade costs," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 153(2), pages 249-270, May.
    13. Chen, Natalie & Novy, Dennis, 2008. "International Trade Integration: A Disaggregated Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 7103, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Cecília Hornok, 2011. "Need for Speed: Is Faster Trade in the EU Trade-Creating?," wiiw Working Papers 75, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    15. Gábor Békés & Lionel Fontagné & Balázs Muraközy & Vincent Vicard, 2017. "Shipment frequency of exporters and demand uncertainty," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 153(4), pages 779-807, November.
    16. Gilles Duranton & Peter M. Morrow & Matthew A. Turner, 2014. "Roads and Trade: Evidence from the US," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(2), pages 681-724.
    17. Chris Muris & Horst Raff & Nicolas Schmitt & Frank Stähler, 2023. "Inventory, Sourcing, and the Effects of Trade Costs: Theory and Empirical Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 10253, CESifo.
    18. Y. H. Venus Lun & Jan Hoffmann, 2016. "Connectivity and trade relativity: the case of ASEAN," Journal of Shipping and Trade, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 1-13, December.
    19. Pisch, Frank, 2020. "Managing global production: theory and evidence from just-in-time supply chains," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108488, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Ciani, Andrea & Mau, Karsten, 2023. "Delivery times in international competition: An empirical investigation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    21. Coşar, A. Kerem & Demir, Banu, 2018. "Shipping inside the box: Containerization and trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 331-345.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Demand and Price Analysis; Public Economics;

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F36 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • L91 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Transportation: General

    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:ags:pugtwp:331578. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gtpurus.html .

    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.