Price Instability and Volatile Intra-National Trade Costs: Evidence from South Sudan's Market Network

How do volatile intra-national trade costs limit price stability in hard-to-reach locations ? In low-income economies, marketplaces are fundamental for food access. I study how frequent disruptions to intra-national trade routes fuel price instability in South Sudanese marketplaces. I construct a directed network of 100 South Sudanese marketplaces. I use geospatial survey data to map supply routes for shipping goods between marketplaces. Combining novel monthly data for 5 years (2019-2024) on consumer prices, conflict and road disruptions, I show that large and frequent price changes are rationalized by variations in intra-national trade costs. First, I recover cost pass-through estimates to correct for spatial differences in mark-ups. Then, I estimate a spatial integration relationship for each origin-destination trading pair. I find that sudden road closures and spikes in violence along an origin-destination route create sharp wedges in destination prices.

About the speaker

Dario De Quarti is a PhD Candidate in Economics at the Geneva Graduate Institute, and a PhD Fellow at the Zambia Evidence Lab of the International Growth Centre (IGC). His research is at the intersection of development economics and trade. He examines how public policies foster resilience for firms and market networks in developing and fragile economies.
Prior to his doctoral studies, Dario worked at the International Trade Centre and at the World Trade Organization.

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