Maritime Transport Costs and Trade

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Maritime Transport Costs and Trade

• jane.korinek_at_oecd.org
•  

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Why?

• As tariffs and excess costs in production have
  fallen, other costs such as transport have become
  relatively more important
• Gravity model workhorse of trade flow models,
  uses distance as a proxy for trade costs.

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New dataset on maritime transport costs

• Most comprehensive dataset on maritime transport
  costs known today
• Different data sources for different segments of
  maritime transport markets (containers, bulk
  industrial raw materials, bulk agricultural raw
  materials)
• Permits calculation of
• transport cost per tonne of merchandise
• ad valorem equivalent

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Why not more?

• Customs data have to be collected by mode of
  transport and by CIF and FOB
• For some countries, these data are not collected
• For others, we have not had access to them
• In other cases, we have incomplete information
  about the availability of these data

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Shipping to and from developing countries is more
expensive than OECD
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Maritime transport costs for grains in some NFIDCs

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Impact of MTC on trade in agriculture

• A doubling of transport costs (/T) is associated
  with a 33-36 decline in agricultural trade
  overall
• Distance is still significant
• The impact of transport costs on trade is
  increasing over time by 1.5 percentage points
  per year

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Context Project on Trade Costs

• Future work to measure and analyse impact of
  other trade costs
• Inland transport
• Logistics and port-side services
• Exchange rate volatility
• Importer/exporter margins
• Distribution issues

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• jane.korinek_at_oecd.org