Our work seeks to better understand the financial risks to corporate operations as a basis for exploring alternative public-private investment strategies. We applied network analysis to model financial relationships within this sector and its connectedness to primary commodities transported on the Great Lakes. The financial network maps were used to quantitatively analyze the industry risk exposure using corporate financial metrics and to query the financial interdependencies of companies relative to the Great Lakes waterway. Results demonstrate that inventory turnover ratio is a robust proxy to quantify weighted financial risks of water dependency across the entire supply chain network.
All data was manually collected from the Bloomberg Terminal and FactSet which are licensed by the University of Michigan. The SPLC module in the Terminal restricts data download and information must be captured manually. All data was collected from September-November 2018.
Sugrue, Dennis, Abigail Martin, and Peter Adriaens. (under review). “Financial Network Analysis to Inform Infrastructure Investment: Great Lakes Waterway and the Steel Supply Chain.” Journal of Infrastructure Systems, American Society of Civil Engineers.
