IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/35957.html

Tariff Staggering

Author

Listed:
  • Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé
  • Martín Uribe

Abstract

Using a panel of U.S. imports and customs duties at the HS 6-digit level, we document that in a typical quarter about 20 percent of tariffs rise, 20 percent fall, and 60 percent remain unchanged. Motivated by these facts, we develop a model of staggered tariff setting and embed it in a dynamic open-economy framework. Staggering changes the dynamics of the cross-sectional mean tariff, generating hump-shaped macroeconomic responses to tariff shocks. Staggering also overturns the Razin–Svensson trade- balance neutrality result for permanent tariff increases, because the gradual adjustment of the mean tariff creates an anticipation effect that induces agents to front-load net imports. Inherited tariff dispersion has first-order macroeconomic effects, allowing tariff harmonization to be studied with linear approximation methods. We find that eliminating tariff dispersion while holding the mean tariff unchanged has effects akin to a transitory tariff cut in an economy without staggering.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé & Martín Uribe, 2026. "Tariff Staggering," NBER Working Papers 35957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35957
    Note: EFG IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w35957.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

    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:nbr:nberwo:35957. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.