Closing borders has always been a typical reaction to pandemics in the history of humanity, and the responses to Covid-19 mark no difference. Initiatives to limit the diffusion of the virus has put the closure of national borders under the spotlight worldwide. However, national scale offers a...

Firms selling products abroad usually have to interact with several border agencies that develop multiple trade regulations and oversee their compliance. These regulations establish the procedures that these firms have to follow and the documents that they have to obtain, fill in, and submit for...

We examine transaction-level Peruvian import data to show that firms are subject to significant costs of port-of-entry delays. At the transaction level, we observe the time it takes a shipment to clear each step in the entry process. Our theory shows conditions under which observed entry times...