The Price of Delay: Supply Disruptions, Product Availability, and Strategic Pricing during the Pandemic

Baslandze, Salomé; Fuchs, Simon

doi:10.29338/ph2026-04

Journal Article

The Price of Delay: Supply Disruptions, Product Availability, and Strategic Pricing during the Pandemic

Abstract: During 2020–23, firms did not just face higher costs but faced an unusually tight constraint on product availability. Imports often did not arrive when expected, and port congestion and vessel delays made replenishment unusually uncertain. In Baslandze and Fuchs (2026), we study how these disruptions showed up in consumer prices using newly linked micro data that match shipment-level bills of lading to high-frequency consumer transaction prices. The evidence points to sizable pass-through from delivery shortfalls to prices, above and beyond the standard pass-through of costs. Prices also rise when competitors experience shortfalls, consistent with scarcity weakening competitive pressure inside product markets. We use the estimates in an accounting exercise to calculate the direct and spillover price responses implied by widespread disruptions.

JEL Classification: E31; L11; L16; F14;

https://doi.org/10.29338/ph2026-04