In recent years trade with highly perishable agricultural products like fresh fish, berries, and cut flowers has increased substantially. The perishability of these products appears to challenge conventional wisdom when it comes to food trade, which emphasizes the importance of large shipments to reduce transportation costs. In this paper, gravity models and several margins of trade are estimated for the trade with fresh salmon, a highly perishable product. The results indicate that increased geographical distance have a larger negative effect than what is generally reported in the literature. Most interestingly, the number of exporters and the shipment frequency increase while there is little impact on shipment size when trade increase. Hence, freshness and possibly avoidance of losses by not selling products by the expiration date seem to be emphasized rather than economies of scale in transportation. [EconLit Citations: F14, Q22].

中文翻译：

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灭亡或繁荣：极易腐烂的海鲜产品的贸易模式

近年来，与鲜鱼、浆果和切花等易腐烂农产品的贸易大幅增加。在食品贸易方面，这些产品的易腐烂性似乎挑战了传统观念，传统观念强调了大量运输对降低运输成本的重要性。在本文中，对与新鲜鲑鱼（一种极易腐烂的产品）贸易的重力模型和若干贸易边际进行了估计。结果表明，地理距离的增加具有比文献中普遍报道的更大的负面影响。最有趣的是，随着贸易量的增加，出口商的数量和出货频率增加，而对出货量的影响很小。因此，似乎更强调新鲜度和可能通过不在到期日之前销售产品来避免损失，而不是运输中的规模经济。[EconLit 引文：F14，Q22]。