Tariffs & Policy
Who Actually Pays a Tariff, and Why the Answer Is It Depends
The importer writes the cheque, but that settles almost nothing about where the cost finally rests. Incidence is decided by…
Trade War China — Tariffs, supply chains and what moves where
Tariffs & Policy
Rules of Origin: How a Product Gets a Nationality
A phone assembled in one country from parts made in six others has to count as being from somewhere. The test that decides it…
Tariffs & Policy
The Classification Code That Decides What an Import Costs
Before anyone argues about a rate, somebody has to decide what the thing is. That decision is made in a numbering system most…
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Tariffs & Policy
Percentage or Per Kilo: Why the Shape of a Duty Matters
Two duties can raise the same revenue and land very differently. The difference is whether the charge tracks value or quantity.
Tariffs & Policy
Most-Favoured-Nation Is a Floor, Not a Favour
The phrase sounds like special treatment and means close to the opposite. It is the default rate that everyone gets unless…
Tariffs & Policy
The Barriers That Are Not Tariffs and Often Bite Harder
Duties are visible, published and comparable. Almost everything else that restricts trade is none of those things.
Tariffs & Policy
Anti-Dumping Duties and the Problem of Proving a Price Is Too Low
Trade remedy cases turn on comparing a price in one market with a price in another. Almost every step of that comparison is…
Tariffs & Policy
Why Raw Materials Enter Cheap and Finished Goods Do Not
Duty rates in most schedules rise with each stage of processing. That gradient quietly decides where value gets added.
Tariffs & Policy
Tariff-Rate Quotas: Two Prices for the Same Product
A quota that does not forbid imports but makes the ones beyond a threshold much more expensive. The interesting question is who…
Quick reads
- Duty Drawback and the Goods That Only Pass ThroughTariffs & Policy
- How Customs Decides What a Shipment Is WorthTariffs & Policy
- Why Firms Pay Duties They Could Legally AvoidTariffs & Policy
- What a Tariff Cannot DoTariffs & Policy
- The Suppliers a Company Cannot NameSupply Chains
- One Component, One Supplier, and an Entire Industry WaitingSupply Chains
- The Bullwhip: How a Small Demand Wobble Becomes a Factory ShutdownSupply Chains
- Lean or Buffered: How Firms Decide How Much Stock to HoldSupply Chains
- Why Lead Time Decides More Than Price DoesSupply Chains
- The Real Cost of Adding a Second SupplierSupply Chains
Tariffs & Policy
All tariffs & policy →Tariffs & Policy
Who Actually Pays a Tariff, and Why the Answer Is It Depends
The importer writes the cheque, but that settles almost nothing about where the cost finally rests. Incidence is decided by which…
Tariffs & Policy
Rules of Origin: How a Product Gets a Nationality
A phone assembled in one country from parts made in six others has to count as being from somewhere. The test that decides it is…
Tariffs & Policy
The Classification Code That Decides What an Import Costs
Before anyone argues about a rate, somebody has to decide what the thing is. That decision is made in a numbering system most…
Supply Chains
All supply chains →
Supply Chains
The Suppliers a Company Cannot Name
Most manufacturers know who they buy from. Very few know who their suppliers buy from, and almost none know the tier below that.
Supply Chains
One Component, One Supplier, and an Entire Industry Waiting
A part worth a fraction of a product's cost can stop its production completely. Value share and criticality are unrelated…
Supply Chains
The Bullwhip: How a Small Demand Wobble Becomes a Factory Shutdown
Order volatility grows as it travels upstream. The amplification is caused by rational behaviour at every step, which is what makes…
Manufacturing
All manufacturing →
Manufacturing
Why Moving a Factory Takes Years Rather Than Months
The building goes up quickly. Everything that makes the building produce sellable output takes far longer, and most of it cannot be…
Manufacturing
The Learning Curve: Why the Thousandth Unit Costs Less Than the Tenth
Unit cost falls with cumulative production rather than with calendar time. That single fact explains a great deal about industrial…
Manufacturing
Minimum Efficient Scale, and Why Some Plants Have to Be Enormous
Certain processes are uneconomic below a size, and that size decides how many plants a whole world can support.
Shipping & Logistics
All shipping & logistics →
Shipping & Logistics
The Steel Box That Decided Which Goods Could Be Traded
Containerisation is usually described as making shipping cheaper. Its more important effect was making entirely new categories of…
Shipping & Logistics
Why Freight Is Priced by Route Rather Than by Distance
Two journeys of equal length can cost very different amounts to ship. The reason is what the ship carries on the way back.
Shipping & Logistics
What a Bonded Warehouse Is Actually For
Goods can sit inside a country for months without legally having been imported. That gap is more useful than it sounds.
Markets & Commodities
All markets & commodities →
Markets & Commodities
The Floor Under Every Manufactured Price
However sophisticated a product is, someone had to dig up or grow what it is made of. That cost sets a limit on how cheap it can…
Markets & Commodities
Why Industrial Buyers Almost Never Pay the Spot Price
The price quoted in market reports is rarely what a factory pays. Most industrial material moves under contracts that reference it…
Markets & Commodities
How a Reference Price Comes to Exist
Someone has to decide what a barrel or a tonne is worth today. The mechanisms that produce that number vary far more than the…
How We Got Here
All how we got here →
How We Got Here
Comparative Advantage: The Idea and What It Never Claimed
The oldest argument in trade economics is also the most frequently misquoted. What it actually says is narrower and more…
How We Got Here
What the Postwar Trade System Was Designed to Do
The rules governing world trade were written by people with a specific and recent memory of what happens when trade collapses.
How We Got Here
When Tariffs Fell and Everything Else Grew
Decades of negotiation reduced duties across industrial goods. The restrictions that mattered then moved into forms that…