Does Blockchain Adoption Improve Supply Chain Transparency and Operational Efficiency? Cross-Country Panel Evidence, 2007–2023

Abstract

Blockchain technology is widely promoted as a means of making supply chains more transparent and efficient, yet quantitative cross-country evidence remains scarce. This study asks whether national-level blockchain adoption is associated with supply chain transparency and operational efficiency. Using a balanced panel of 20 economies observed in seven World Bank Logistics Performance Index (LPI) waves between 2007 and 2023 (140 observations), transparency is proxied by the LPI tracking-and-tracing score and efficiency by the overall LPI score. Blockchain adoption is captured by a composite Blockchain Adoption Index (BAI) constructed from World Development Indicators. Pooled estimates show a positive but statistically insignificant association with both outcomes (β ≈ 1.06 and 1.06). Once country and year fixed effects are included, the within-country effect of the BAI is close to zero for transparency (β = −0.03, p = 0.94) and efficiency (β = −0.06, p = 0.89); hypotheses H1 and H2 are therefore not supported in the baseline specification. The estimates are, however, sensitive to sample composition: excluding Argentina yields a positive and statistically significant efficiency coefficient (β = 0.90, p = 0.004). The results suggest that the strong cross-country correlation between digital capability and logistics performance reflects long-run differences between countries more than measurable within-country gains from rising adoption, and they underline the need for adoption measures that capture actual blockchain deployment.