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KDI 경제교육·정보센터

ENG
  • 경제배움
  • Economic

    Information

    and Education

    Center

최신자료
Distribution Costs
CEPR
2026.07.09
We provide the first direct estimates of distribution expenses incurred by manufacturing plants and quantify their importance for aggregate consumption and measured misallocation. Using a novel measure from the Indian Annual Survey of Industries, we document three facts: distribution expenses amount to over half of labor costs, are over three times larger as a share of sales for plants in the largest decile relative to the smallest, and declined by one third from 2000 to 2010. We develop a model of heterogeneous manufacturing firms that rely on distribution services to sell across space. The improvements in distribution over that time period raised manufacturing consumption by 24.5%. The gains materialize quickly, but unevenly: large firms expand while many small local firms shrink or exit. Distribution costs also matter for measured misallocation: standard TFPR measures generate spurious dispersion and a positive relationship with size. In the ASI, accounting for distribution costs lowers measured TFPR dispersion by 5.1% and the elasticity of TFPR with respect to plant size by 7.0%.