Scholarly record

THE INTERACTION BETWEEN GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT AND INCOME OF GLOBAL THIRD-PARTY LOGISTICS PROVIDERS (3PL)

H. P. Skender, P. A. Mirkovic, A. Dobrilovich

Abstract

The role of logistics in today's global business is steadily increasing, which is why the coordination and control of logistics activities has become a necessity. The logistics industry provides a significant contribution to the economy through job creation, the creation of national income and the inflow of foreign investment. However, most of the previous empirical research is based on the assessment of the effects of logistics and 3PL operators on business operations and on the effects on the economy, ignoring the opposite situation where the size of economy stimulates the global 3PL operators' income. The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the global logistics market, i.e. to estimate the effects of the absolute and relative size of the economy, measured by gross domestic product and gross domestic product per capita on the income of global 3PL operators. The control variables included in regression are logistics performance index and investment in infrastructure, since it is assumed that the quality of logistics infrastructure in countries as well as investments can positively affect the operations of 3PL operators. The analysis was conducted on data for 58 countries in 2016. According to the World Bank classification, the countries are divided into 3 groups, lower middle-income, higher middle-income and high-income countries. The results of the regression analysis show that in cases of all three estimations, the absolute size of the economy has a significant positive effect on the income of the 3PL operator, while the relative size of the economy is not significant. Only in the case of high-income countries, the relative size of the economy has a significant, but negative impact on the income of the 3PL operator. The logistics performance index and investment in infrastructure variables are insignificant in all three cases. The contribution of this paper is reflected in the empirical estimation of the size of the economy on the operations of global 3PL operators.

Publication details

Back to publication list