IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_4735.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tariffs Passing Through Retailers: Do Tariffs Actually Protect Domestic Manufacturers?

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew T. Cole
  • Carsten Eckel

Abstract

Historically, tariffs have been an attractive policy tool to protect domestic industries. The benefits of such a policy are based on theoretical models that assume foreign manufacturers sell directly to consumers. However, recent empirical evidence suggests that wholesalers and retailers play an active role in international trade. We present a model of retailers that illustrates how accounting for these strategic intermediaries can actually make some domestic manufacturers worse off in response to an increased tariff. Moreover, any production gains that occur are biased towards higher cost domestic manufacturers. This result is not driven by the cannibalization effect of the multiproduct firm literature rather it is the fact that retailers compete over the marginal consumer (the extensive margin).

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew T. Cole & Carsten Eckel, 2014. "Tariffs Passing Through Retailers: Do Tariffs Actually Protect Domestic Manufacturers?," CESifo Working Paper Series 4735, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_4735
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp4735.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raff, Horst & Schmitt, Nicolas, 2009. "Imports, pass-through, and the structure of retail markets," Kiel Working Papers 1556, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Rabah Amir & Jim Y. Jin & Gerald Pech & Michael Tröge, 2016. "Prices and Deadweight Loss in Multiproduct Monopoly," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 18(3), pages 346-362, June.
    3. Avinash Dixit, 1979. "A Model of Duopoly Suggesting a Theory of Entry Barriers," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 20-32, Spring.
    4. Bernardo S. Blum & Sebastian Claro & Ignatius Horstmann, 2010. "Facts and Figures on Intermediated Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 419-423, May.
    5. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2010. "Wholesalers and Retailers in US Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 408-413, May.
    6. Eike Berner & Laura Birg & Dominik Boddin, 2017. "Retailers and Consumers: The Pass-through of Import Price Changes," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(7), pages 1314-1344, July.
    7. Hellerstein, Rebecca, 2008. "Who bears the cost of a change in the exchange rate? Pass-through accounting for the case of beer," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 14-32, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Raff, Horst & Schmitt, Nicolas, 2015. "Retailing and international trade: A survey of the literature," Economics Working Papers 2015-02, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cole, Matthew T. & Eckel, Carsten, 2018. "Tariffs and markups in retailing," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 139-153.
    2. Christian Volpe Martincus, 2016. "Out of the Border Labyrinth: An Assessment of Trade Facilitation Initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 96856, February.
    3. Youngmin BAEK & Kazunobu HAYAKAWA & Kenmei TSUBOTA & Shujiro URATA & Kenta YAMANOUCHI, 2019. "Tariff Pass-through in Wholesaling: Evidence from Firm-level Data in Japan," Discussion papers 19064, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    4. Erbahar, Aksel & Rebeyrol, Vincent, 2023. "Trade intermediation by producers," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    5. Andrew B. Bernard & Marco Grazzi & Chiara Tomasi, 2010. "Intermediaries in International Trade: direct versus indirect modes of export," LEM Papers Series 2010/19, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    6. Tadashi ITO & Chigusa OKAMOTO & Yukiko SAITO, 2020. "Intermediaries in Transaction Networks: Location of Wholesalers' Headquarters and Other Establishments," Discussion papers 20056, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    7. Chan, Jackie M.L., 2019. "Financial frictions and trade intermediation: Theory and evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 567-593.
    8. Fergal McCann, 2013. "Indirect Exporters," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 519-535, December.
    9. Angela Cheptea & Charlotte Emlinger & Karine Latouche, 2012. "Multinational Retailers and Home Country Exports," Post-Print hal-01208840, HAL.
    10. Volpe Martincus, Christian & Carballo, Jerónimo & Graziano, Alejandro, 2015. "Customs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 119-137.
    11. Daunfeldt, Sven-Olov & Engberg, Erik & Halvarsson, Daniel & Kokko, Ari & Tingvall, Patrik, 2019. "Wholesale firms: A catalyst for Swedish exports?," Ratio Working Papers 328, The Ratio Institute.
    12. Nucci, Francesco & Pietrovito, Filomena & Pozzolo, Alberto Franco, 2023. "Intermediated trade and credit constraints: The case of firm’s imports," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 201-220.
    13. Amir, Rabah & Jin, Jim Y. & Lasselle, Laurence, 2023. "Uniform, efficient and independent Ramsey taxes across markets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 373-386.
    14. Baek, Youngmin & Hayakawa, Kazunobu & Tsubota, Kenmei & Urata, Shujiro & Yamanouchi, Kenta, 2021. "Tariff Pass-through in Wholesaling: Evidence from Firm-level Data in Japan✰," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    15. Crozet, Matthieu & Lalanne, Guy & Poncet, Sandra, 2013. "Wholesalers in international trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-17.
    16. Dasgupta, Kunal & Mondria, Jordi, 2018. "Quality uncertainty and intermediation in international trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 68-91.
    17. Head, Keith & Jing, Ran & Swenson, Deborah L., 2014. "From Beijing to Bentonville: Do multinational retailers link markets?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 79-92.
    18. Domini, Giacomo & Grazzi, Marco & Moschella, Daniele & Treibich, Tania, 2022. "For whom the bell tolls: The firm-level effects of automation on wage and gender inequality," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(7).
    19. Nunn, Nathan & Trefler, Daniel, 2014. "Domestic Institutions as a Source of Comparative Advantage," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 263-315, Elsevier.
    20. Jonathan Timmis, 2013. "Internet Adoption and Firm Exports in Developing Economies," Discussion Papers 2013-05, University of Nottingham, GEP.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    tariffs; retailing; pass-through; protection;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_4735. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.