IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/15-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Identifying Foreign Suppliers in U.S. Merchandise Import Transactions

Author

Listed:
  • Fariha Kamal
  • C.J. Krizan
  • Ryan Monarch

Abstract

The availability of international trade transactions data capturing individual relationships between buyers and suppliers permits the answering of numerous new questions governing the economic activity of traders. In this paper, we explore the reliability of two-sided firm trade transactions data sourced from the United States by comparing the number of foreign suppliers from U.S. merchandise import transaction data to origin-country data. We find that the statistic derived from the origin-country data, on average, tends to be 20 percent lower than using the raw U.S. data. Guided by this finding, we propose and implement a set of methods that are capable of aligning the counts more closely from these two different data sources. Overall, our analysis presents broad support for the use of U.S. merchandise import transactions data to study buyer-supplier relationships in international trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Fariha Kamal & C.J. Krizan & Ryan Monarch, 2015. "Identifying Foreign Suppliers in U.S. Merchandise Import Transactions," Working Papers 15-11, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:15-11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2015/CES-WP-15-11.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2015
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Békés, Gábor & Muraközy, Balázs & Harasztosi, Péter, 2011. "Firms and products in international trade: Evidence from Hungary," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 4-24, March.
    2. di Giovanni, Julian & Levchenko, Andrei A., 2013. "Firm entry, trade, and welfare in Zipf's world," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 283-296.
    3. Gábor Békés & Péter Harasztosi & Balázs Muraközy, 2009. "Firms and Products in International Trade: Data and Patterns for Hungary," CeFiG Working Papers 9, Center for Firms in the Global Economy, revised 12 Oct 2009.
    4. Ryan Monarch, 2014. ""It's Not You, It's Me": Breakup In U.S.-China Trade Relationships," Working Papers 14-08, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    5. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Peter K. Schott, 2009. "Importers, Exporters and Multinationals: A Portrait of Firms in the U.S. that Trade Goods," NBER Chapters, in: Producer Dynamics: New Evidence from Micro Data, pages 513-552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    7. Kamal, Fariha & Sundaram, Asha, 2016. "Buyer–seller relationships in international trade: Do your neighbors matter?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 128-140.
    8. Timothy Dunne & J. Bradford Jensen & Mark J. Roberts, 2009. "Producer Dynamics: New Evidence from Micro Data," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number dunn05-1, October.
    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. Bonfiglioli, Alessandra & Crinò, Rosario & Gancia, Gino, 2021. "Concentration in international markets: Evidence from US imports," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 19-39.
    2. Redding, Stephen & Weinstein, David, 2017. "Aggregating From Micro to Macro Patterns of Trade," CEPR Discussion Papers 12446, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Tim Schmidt-Eisenlohr & Ryan Monarch, 2015. "Learning and the Value of Relationships in International Trade," 2015 Meeting Papers 668, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Bonfiglioli, Alessandra & Crinò, Rosario & Gancia, Gino, 2025. "Firms and economic performance: A view from trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    5. Redding, Stephen J. & Weinstein, David E., 2024. "Accounting for trade patterns," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    6. Joaquín Blaum & Federico Esposito & Sebastian Heise, 2025. "Input Sourcing Under Supply Chain Risk: Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing Firms," Staff Reports 1141, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    7. Kirill Borusyak & Xavier Jaravel, 2018. "The Distributional Effects of Trade: Theory and Evidence from the United States," 2018 Meeting Papers 284, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Kamal, Fariha & Sundaram, Asha, 2016. "Buyer–seller relationships in international trade: Do your neighbors matter?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 128-140.
    9. Felipe Benguria, 2022. "Do US exporters take advantage of free trade agreements? Evidence from the US‐Colombia free trade agreement," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1148-1179, September.
    10. Sebastian Heise, 2016. "Firm-to-Firm Relationships and Price Rigidity - Theory and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 6226, CESifo.
    11. Ryan Monarch, 2014. ""It's Not You, It's Me": Breakup In U.S.-China Trade Relationships," Working Papers 14-08, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    12. Basker, Emek & Kamal, Fariha, 2021. "Recall and response: Relationship adjustments to adverse information shocks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    13. Aaron Flaaen, 2017. "The Role of Transfer Prices in Profit-Shifting by U.S. Multinational Firms : Evidence from the 2004 Homeland Investment Act," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2017-055, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Peter Schott & Justin Pierce & Georg Schaur & Sebastian Heise, 2017. "Trade Policy Uncertainty and the Structure of Supply Chains," 2017 Meeting Papers 788, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    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. Fariha Kamal & Ryan Monarch, 2018. "Identifying foreign suppliers in U.S. import data," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 117-139, February.
    2. Armando Silva & Oscar Afonso & Ana Africano, 2013. "Economic performance and international trade engagement: the case of Portuguese manufacturing firms," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 521-547, December.
    3. Vincenzo Verardi & Joachim Wagner, 2021. "Productivity Premia for German Manufacturing Firms Exporting to the Euro-area and Beyond: First Evidence from Robust Fixed Effects Estimations," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Joachim Wagner (ed.), MICROECONOMETRIC STUDIES OF FIRMS’ IMPORTS AND EXPORTS Advanced Methods of Analysis and Evidence from German Enterprises, chapter 7, pages 87-109, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. João Amador & Luca Opromolla, 2013. "Product and destination mix in export markets," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 149(1), pages 23-53, March.
    5. Carballo, Jeronimo & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Volpe Martincus, Christian, 2018. "The buyer margins of firms' exports," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 33-49.
    6. Joachim Wagner, 2016. "A survey of empirical studies using transaction level data on exports and imports," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 152(1), pages 215-225, February.
    7. William F. Lincoln & Andrew H. McCallum, 2011. "Entry Costs & Increasing Trade," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series wp1024, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    8. Dudley Cooke, 2016. "Optimal Monetary Policy with Endogenous Export Participation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 21, pages 72-88, July.
    9. William F. Lincoln & Andrew H. McCallum, 2011. "Entry Costs and Increasing Trade," Working Papers 11-38, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    10. Lincoln, William F. & McCallum, Andrew H., 2011. "Entry Costs and Increasing Trade," Working Papers 619, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    11. Lincoln, William F. & McCallum, Andrew H., 2011. "Entry Costs and Increasing Trade," Working Papers 619, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    12. Lawless, Martina & Siedschlag, Iulia & Studnicka, Zuzanna, 2017. "Expanding and diversifying the manufactured exports of Irish-owned enterprises," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BKMNEXT335.
    13. Redding, Stephen & Weinstein, David, 2017. "Aggregating From Micro to Macro Patterns of Trade," CEPR Discussion Papers 12446, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2018. "Global Firms," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(2), pages 565-619, June.
    15. 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.
    16. Joakim Gullstrand & Karin Olofsdotter & Susanna Thede, 2016. "Importers, Exporters and Multinationals: Exploring the Hierarchy of International Linkages," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 495-514, July.
    17. repec:grz:wpaper:2012-09 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Marc-Andreas Muendler & Stephen J. Redding, 2017. "Trade and Inequality: From Theory to Estimation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 357-405.
    19. Lopresti, John, 2016. "Multiproduct firms and product scope adjustment in trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 160-173.
    20. Emanuele Forlani, 2017. "Irish Firms’ Productivity and Imported Inputs," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(6), pages 710-743, December.
    21. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2011. "Multiproduct Firms and Trade Liberalization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(3), pages 1271-1318.

    More about this item

    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:cen:wpaper:15-11. 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: Dawn Anderson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesgvus.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.