Tariff Staggering

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.