彼得森经济研究所-供应链是否带来了疫情时期的通货膨胀？（英）-16份

1750 Massachusetts Avenue, NW | Washington, DC 20036-1903 USA | +1.202.328.9000 | www.piie.comPOLICY BRIEFPhil Levy is a lead trade economist at the World Bank. He was previously chief economist at Flexport, a logistics startup. Prior to that, among other roles, he taught at Yale, Columbia, and Northwestern Universities and was senior economist for trade in President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. 24-10 Did Supply Chains Deliver Pandemic-Era Inflation?Phil LevyOctober 2024Note: The views expressed in this paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the World Bank or its Board of Directors. This Policy Brief is part of a series titled Understanding COVID Era Inflation. PIIE gratefully acknowledges the financial support from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous for the research presented in this Policy Brief. The research was conducted independently; funders are never given the right to review a publication before its release.INTRODUCTIONThe question of whether supply chain breakdowns were a significant cause of pandemic-era inflation has drawn attention, both in terms of supply chain resilience and macroeconomic policy. In the former case, if supply chain breakdowns drove inflation, that might strengthen the argument for capacity expansion, reshoring, or other remediation. In the latter case, if supply chains were not the cause, then one must look more vigorously at other potential explanations, such as monetary or fiscal policy. This Policy Brief argues that supply chain breakdowns were not a principal cause of the inflation of recent years. The allegation that they were is a compound claim that goes as follows: (1) supply chains did not perform as they ought to; and (2) that failure was an important cause of inflation. The claim helped spur serious efforts through legislation, regulation, and executive branch action to push for “resilient” supply chains, where resilience presumably means the ability to handle a similar shock with significantly less disruption. I largely focus on US trade in containerized goods and shows that, within months of the pandemic’s onset, the quantities of goods delivered increased significantly. These real increases were seen in broad categories such as overall imports of goods, flow of goods through ocean ports, and in personal consumption expenditures on durable and nondurable goods. They were also mirrored in more disaggregated categories. There were increases relative to both prepandemic levels and trend lines. Both shipping and consumption of goods were well above levels that might reasonably have been anticipated from prepandemic data. 2 PB 24-10 | OCTOBER 2024None of this is to deny the sharp increases in inflation, the price of shipping, and the accompanying delays and empty shelves. Average times for moving container cargo from Asia to North America went from roughly 1.5 months prepandemic to almost 4 months in early 2022. Shipping prices also rose dramaticall