Understanding the Operations of Freight Forwarders : Evidence from Serbia
Freight forwarders play a key role in moving goods across international borders. They arrange transport, oversee customs clearance on behalf of their clients, and more generally troubleshoot issues that arise while goods are in transit. This paper...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2015/06/24648773/understanding-operations-freight-forwarders-evidence-serbia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22185 |
| Summary: | Freight forwarders play a key role in
moving goods across international borders. They arrange
transport, oversee customs clearance on behalf of their
clients, and more generally troubleshoot issues that arise
while goods are in transit. This paper reports the results
from a survey of 153 freight forwarding firms in Serbia.
Respondents report on firm characteristics, operational
choices, and conditions at the border posts and terminals
where imported goods are cleared for release. One key
purpose of the study is to investigate operational
trade-offs between time and cost that arise when import
shipments are in transit. In three of four hypotheticals,
respondents suggest that money savings dominate time
savings. Responses regarding real operational decisions such
as route choices reinforce this finding. Respondents also
reported penalty rates for late delivery of import shipments
as well as the value of a typical import shipment. From
these responses, it is estimated that the contracted value
of one additional (unexpected) day of delivery time in
Serbia appears to be approximately 1 percent of the value of
the underlying shipment. |
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