Trade Intermediation and Resilience in Global Sourcing

Oscar Perelló

No 13046, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: I study the role of trade intermediaries in mitigating supply chain risk. Chilean intermediated imports rise and fewer firms import directly when origin-product risk increases. Firm-to-firm transactions reveal that intermediaries maintain larger and more stable supplier networks, while only larger producers diversify suppliers. I rationalize firms’ sourcing strategies in a model with matching costs and insecure supplier links. Intermediation lowers expected input costs despite brokerage fees, allowing producers to secure inputs without diversifying themselves. A 10 percent increase in global risk lowers operating profits by 3.5 percent and raises consumer prices by 0.9 percent. These losses nearly double without intermediation.

Keywords: supply chain risk; trade intermediaries; global value chains (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F12 F14 L14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp13046.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13046

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().