The Federal Reserve Board published a research paper examining how US importing firms organize their supply chains across sectors using transaction-level import data and a model-based measure called sellers per shipment (SPS). The paper links high SPS to spot-market purchasing that relies on costly inspections to manage quality control risks, and low SPS to longer-term supplier relationships where buyers pay an incentive premium to deter “cheating.” It documents sector-level variation in SPS and finds that shipping characteristics including average price, quantity shipped, and shipment frequency align within each sector with the sourcing model developed in Heise et al. (2021), supporting the use of SPS as an organizing metric.
Federal Reserve Board 2025-02-27
Federal Reserve Board publishes research using transaction-level import data to map how supply chains are organized across sectors
The Federal Reserve Board released a research paper analyzing US importing firms' supply chain organization using transaction-level import data and the sellers per shipment (SPS) metric. The study links high SPS with spot-market purchasing and low SPS with long-term supplier relationships, highlighting sector-level variations. It confirms that shipping characteristics align with the sourcing model from Heise et al. (2021), validating SPS as an organizing metric.