Do Larger Importing Firms Face Lower Freight Rates?

Adina Ardelean () and Volodymyr Lugovskyy
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Adina Ardelean: Santa Clara University

CAEPR Working Papers from Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington

Abstract: This paper documents that, even within a narrowly defined product and port-to-port route, the maritime international freight rates are lower for larger importing firms. Even after controlling for shipment sizes, the 90th-percentile importing firm faces a 20% lower freight rate and, as a result, a 1.8% lower delivered price for a given product and route than the 10th-percentile firm. The firm size matters only in the presence of some degree of competition among shippers?monopoly shippers charge a higher, but symmetric freight rates across all firms. These results are consistent with our theoretical predictions and are robust to multiple robustness checks, including controlling for the size of an exporting firm. We further argue that asymmetries in access to imports affect input prices, TFP estimation, and magnify the extent of firm size heterogeneity.

Keywords: Freight Rates; Firm Size Advantage; Maritime Shipping (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2020-02
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inu:caeprp:2020002

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