IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cen/wpaper/26-17.html

Did Foreigners Pay America’s Tariffs? Quantity Discounts, Scale Economies and Incomplete Pass-Through

Author

Listed:
  • Sharat Ganapati
  • Colin J. Hottman

Abstract

Transaction-level quantity discounts are a pervasive feature of US trade, shaping both price variation and tariff incidence. Using administrative microdata, we show that these discounts reflect transaction-level scale economies rather than market power. Accounting for these micro-level economies resolves a key puzzle: while observed import prices rose one-for-one with 2018-2019 US tariffs, we show this was driven by the loss of scale economies as transaction sizes collapsed. Controlling for this scale effect, the strategic pass-through of tariffs to scale-free prices falls to 60 percent, implying foreign exporters absorbed a significant share of the burden through reduced markups.

Suggested Citation

  • Sharat Ganapati & Colin J. Hottman, 2026. "Did Foreigners Pay America’s Tariffs? Quantity Discounts, Scale Economies and Incomplete Pass-Through," Working Papers 26-17, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    • Handle: RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2026/adrm/ces/CES-WP-26-17.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2026
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg & Rebecca Hellerstein, 2008. "A Structural Approach to Explaining Incomplete Exchange-Rate Pass-Through and Pricing-to-Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 423-429, May.
    2. Dominick Bartelme & Arnaud Costinot & Dave Donaldson & Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, 2025. "The Textbook Case for Industrial Policy: Theory Meets Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 133(5), pages 1527-1573.
    3. Robert W. Staiger & Kyle Bagwell, 1999. "An Economic Theory of GATT," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 215-248, March.
    4. Gita Gopinath & Brent Neiman, 2026. "The Incidence of Tariffs: Rates and Reality," NBER Working Papers 34620, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Adachi, Takanori & Fabinger, Michal, 2022. "Pass-through, welfare, and incidence under imperfect competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    6. Andrew B. Bernard & Emmanuel Dhyne & Glenn Magerman & Kalina Manova & Andreas Moxnes, 2022. "The Origins of Firm Heterogeneity: A Production Network Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(7), pages 1765-1804.
    7. Nicolas Berman & Philippe Martin & Thierry Mayer, 2012. "How do Different Exporters React to Exchange Rate Changes?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 437-492.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ossa, Ralph & Redding, Stephen, 2026. "The Economics of Tariffs," CEPR Discussion Papers 21221, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    2. M. Shahe Emran & Dilip Mookherjee & Forhad Shilpi & M. Helal Uddin, 2021. "Credit Rationing and Pass-Through in Supply Chains: Theory and Evidence from Bangladesh," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 202-236, July.
    3. Mallick, Sushanta & Marques, Helena, 2016. "Does quality differentiation matter in exporters' pricing behaviour? Comparing China and India," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 71-90.
    4. Mr. Arvind Subramanian & Ms. Prachi Mishra & Aaditya Mattoo, 2012. "Spillover Effects of Exchange Rates: A Study of the Renminbi," IMF Working Papers 2012/088, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Ha, Jongrim & Marc Stocker, M. & Yilmazkuday, Hakan, 2020. "Inflation and exchange rate pass-through," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    6. Berthou, Antoine & Mayer, Thierry & Mésonnier, Jean-Stéphane, 2024. "Good connections : Bank specialization and the tariff elasticity of exports," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    7. Sebastian Heise, 2019. "Firm-to-Firm Relationships and the Pass-Through of Shocks: Theory and Evidence," Staff Reports 896, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    8. Gimenez-Perales, Victor, 2024. "The dynamics of importer–exporter connections," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    9. Casas, Camila, 2020. "Industry heterogeneity and exchange rate pass-through," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    10. Costinot, Arnaud & Adao, Rodrigo & Carrillo, Paul & Donaldson, Dave & Pomeranz, Dina, 2020. "International Trade and Earnings Inequality: A New Factor Content Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 15598, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    11. Yu, Zhuangxiong & Cheng, Jiajia & Mukhopadhaya, Pundarik & Dong, Jiemiao, 2023. "Do information spillovers across products aggravate product market monopoly? An examination with Chinese data," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    12. Tscheke, Jan, 2016. "Operational Hedging of Exchange Rate Risks," Discussion Papers in Economics 30227, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    13. Gräb, Johannes & Lafarguette, Romain, 2015. "The role of currency invoicing for the international transmission," The international role of the euro - Special feature, European Central Bank.
    14. repec:osf:socarx:j8wgx_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Fracasso, Andrea & Secchi, Angelo & Tomasi, Chiara, 2022. "Export pricing and exchange rate expectations under uncertainty," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 135-152.
    16. Burstein, Ariel & Gopinath, Gita, 2014. "International Prices and Exchange Rates," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 391-451, Elsevier.
    17. Wozny, Florian, 2024. "Tax Incidence in Heterogeneous Markets: The Pass-through of Air Passenger Taxes on Airfares," IZA Discussion Papers 16783, IZA Network @ LISER.
    18. Mary Amiti & Oleg Itskhoki & Jozef Konings, 2014. "Importers, Exporters, and Exchange Rate Disconnect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(7), pages 1942-1978, July.
    19. repec:dau:papers:123456789/15237 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. M. Shahe Emran & Dilip Mookherjee & Forhad Shilpi & M. Helal Uddin, "undated". "Do Consumers Benefit from Supply Chain Intermediaries? Evidence from a Policy Experiment in Edible Oils Market in Bangladesh," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-273, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    21. Vanessa Alvariez & Michele Fioretti & Ayumu Ken Kikkawa & Monica Morlacco, 2022. "Two-Sided Market Power in Firm-to-Firm Trade," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-03795736, HAL.
    22. Yushi Yoshida & Yuri Sasaki, 2024. "Automobile exports: Exchange rate, export price and retail price," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 519-543, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:26-17. 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.