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…
Ipsita Mohanty
Contributing writer, Trade War China
Ipsita writes about tariff policy and who actually absorbs the cost.
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9 articles
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
How Customs Decides What a Shipment Is Worth
An ad valorem duty needs a value to apply itself to. Arriving at that figure involves more rules than most importers expect.
Tariffs & Policy
Why Firms Pay Duties They Could Legally Avoid
Preferential agreements cut duty to zero on a great deal of trade that still enters at the standard rate. The reason is paperwork…
Tariffs & Policy
What a Tariff Cannot Do
Duties change relative prices, and relative prices change behaviour. What they do not do is create capacity, skills or supplier…
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…
How We Got Here
The Unbundling: How Production Came Apart
For most of industrial history, making a thing happened in one place. The reasons it stopped happening that way are specific and…
How We Got Here
Two Development Strategies and What Each Assumed
Countries seeking to industrialise have broadly chosen between building for the home market and building for export. Each rests on…
How We Got Here
Deindustrialisation: What Actually Moved and What Did Not
Manufacturing employment fell in many wealthy economies while manufacturing output did not. Untangling the two explains most of the…