IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/pseptp/halshs-01885467.html

Quality screening and trade intermediaries: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Sandra Poncet

    (PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Meina Xu

    (Shanghai University)

Abstract

We examine the quality‐screening role played by intermediaries in international trade, exploiting export data at the product level for Chinese exporters. We uncover substantial heterogeneity among intermediaries, and distinguish two types: generalized and specialized intermediaries. We find strong evidence of a quality‐verification role for specialized intermediaries: they are more prevalent in products with greater quality dispersion among local exporters, and export goods of higher quality than do generalized intermediaries. Our results suggest that specialized intermediaries have the capacity to reduce the incidence of quality problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Sandra Poncet & Meina Xu, 2018. "Quality screening and trade intermediaries: Evidence from China," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-01885467, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-01885467
    DOI: 10.1111/roie.12324
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Dasgupta, Kunal & Mondria, Jordi, 2018. "Quality uncertainty and intermediation in international trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 68-91.
    2. Zheng Wang, 2021. "Blame the Foreigners? Exports and Sulfur Dioxide Emissions in China," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 80(2), pages 279-309, October.
    3. Duan, Jianhua & Xuefeng, Qian & Das, Kuntal K. & Meriluoto, Laura & Reed, W. Robert, 2020. "A replication of "The role of intermediaries in facilitating trade" (Journal of International Economics, 2011)," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 14, pages 1-30.
    4. Shen, Binchao, 2025. "Intermediated trade and innovation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    5. Guo, Qi & Zhang, Peng & Zhu, Shengjun & Liu, Junyang, 2023. "Export market relatedness, geographical diversification and regional export growth in China," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 336-346.
    6. Hege Medin, 2022. "Why do firms import via merchants in entrepôt countries rather than directly from the source?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 854-884, August.
    7. 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.
    8. Jianhua Duan & Xuefeng Qian & Kuntal K. Das & Laura Meriluoto & W. Robert Reed, 2019. "Further Tests of Ahn, Khandelwal, and Wei’s (2011) Model of Intermediated Trade," Working Papers in Economics 19/02, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • O25 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Industrial Policy
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    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:hal:pseptp:halshs-01885467. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Caroline Bauer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.