We study how tariffs affect prices along the supply chain using product-level data from a large U.S. wine importer during the 2019-2021 U.S. tariffs on European wines. Combining confidential transaction prices with foreign suppliers, U.S. distributors, and retail prices, we trace tariff pass-through from producers to consumers. Pass-through at the border is incomplete, yet consumers paid more than the tariff revenue collected. The dollar markups per bottle for the importer contracted, but expanded for the combined distributor-retailer segment. Price changes along the chain reached consumers after one year. We also document tariff engineering that biases unit values in trade statistics.
We provide the first ex post microeconomic welfare analysis of the electric vehicle (EV) tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Relative to pre-IRA policy, the credits generated $1.96 in domestic benefits per dollar of government spending, with taxpayer cost of $36,500 per additional EV. Relative to having no EV credits, they yielded $1.11 in domestic benefits per dollar of government spending. A leasing loophole that sidestepped domestic content rules created negative domestic benefits. A prominent example of green industrial policy, the credits harmed foreign countries by shifting surplus to domestic producers and helped them by decreasing CO2 emissions.
Exporting and the Environment: A New Look with Micro-Data, with Aoife Hanley and Sourafel Girma, June 2008
Luck vs. Fundamentals: What determines the spatial distribution of economic activity? with Zi Wang