Trade duration of Chinese shrimp exports

Seafood is among the most highly traded food commodities, and one will expect trade patterns to be highly dynamic. In this paper, trade duration is investigated for Chinese shrimp exports using firm-level data for the period 2007-2015. In line with the results from the general literature, most trade relationships in the Chinese exports of shrimp are short-lived and influenced by the market as well as product characteristics. The results indicate that it is also important to account for firm-specific characteristics, large firms have more stable trade relationships. It is also worthwhile to note that the firms located within Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have a shorter trade duration than those outside of SEZs, indicating these firms' opportunistic market behavior.