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Preface
simpler types of supply chains, such as goods cleared in the same country, or domestic corridors. The book provides a new vision of the relationship between the key elements that influence the performance of the supply chain: infrastructure, other factors that affect the performance of services providers, and the procedural arrangements that are implemented in order to achieve regulatory objectives. The authors stress the overarching importance of political economy factors in understanding the performance of trade supply chains, including the prevalence of rent-seeking behaviors. As a result, a technical measure or an investment may have a major impact on market conditions in one environment, while having no beneficial effect in another. The framework developed in this book to analyze (changes in) the total cost of trade transport incurred by end users—including the costs of a lack of reliability in logistics chains—constitutes a useful tool to disentangle the impact of different trade facilitation measures. This is of great practical policy relevance as it offers a tool that is directly applicable to the design of projects and policy reforms. The easily implementable, quantitative techniques that are presented in the volume can also be used for the appraisal or evaluation of trade and transport facilitation projects. In this respect, the volume is an important complement to macromodeling of the impact of trade facilitation. I am confident that this book will appeal to a wide readership of policy makers, development practitioners, and analysts who are interested in identifying measures to enhance the performance of international supply chains in developing countries. Bernard Hoekman Sector Director of the International Trade Department, PREM World Bank