òòò½Íø Papers and Proceedings
ISSN 2574-0768 (Print) | ISSN 2574-0776 (Online)
How Do Firms in Different Sectors Organize Their Supply Chains? Evidence from Transaction-Level Import Data
òòò½Íø Papers and Proceedings
vol. 115,
May 2025
(pp. 177–81)
Abstract
Heise et al. (2021) develop a model-based empirical measure—sellers per shipment (SPS)—to characterize how firms organize supply chains in response to a quality control problem. High SPS indicates spot-market purchasing with costly inspections, while low SPS suggests long-term relationships where buyers pay an incentive premium to prevent cheating. Here, we document intuitive variation in US importers' SPS across sectors and show that shipping characteristics such as average price, quantity shipped, and shipment frequency are in each sector consistent with the model of sourcing developed in Heise et al. (2021), providing further confidence in the measure.Citation
Heise, Sebastian, Justin R. Pierce, Georg Schaur, and Peter K. Schott. 2025. "How Do Firms in Different Sectors Organize Their Supply Chains? Evidence from Transaction-Level Import Data." òòò½Íø Papers and Proceedings 115: 177–81. DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20251010Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D22 Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
- F14 Empirical Studies of Trade
- G31 Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies; Capacity
- L14 Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation; Networks
- L23 Organization of Production
- M11 Production Management