Documentos

ABSTRACT: Rising prices and reports of empty shelves in major economies have drawn attention to the functioning of supply chains that normally operate smoothly in the background. Among the issues, the long delays that port congestion may have caused in delivering goods to consumers and firms have been gathering increasing attention. We shed light on these issues leveraging a unique data set on maritime transport. Two main features emerge. First, at the world level, we find that shipping times jumped upwards as soon as the COVID crisis hit, and after a marked acceleration from end-2020, delays surpassed 1.5 days on average by December 2021 – or roughly a 25 percent increase in global travel times.