Economic sanction and global sourcing complexity: A cross‐country analysis

Abstract

The supply chain disruption drives the firms to source the same inputs from multiple suppliers in low-cost countries. However, the imposition of economic sanctions may prevent firms from enjoying diversification benefits of global sourcing complexity. Using data for more than 127 countries from 1997 to 2014, we uncover the effects of economic sanctions on the global sourcing complexity. After extensive robustness checks, our main findings reveal that economic sanction hampers global sourcing complexity. These effects are conditional on the level of economic development and the occurrence of financial crises in a particular country. Our results are robust for various forms of economic sanction, alternative estimators, and when controlling endogeneity problems. Our findings suggest important foreign policy and managerial implications for the countries and firms in response to economic sanctions.