This paper explores the macroeconomic and distributional consequences of consumption tariffs and materials tariffs. It highlights the contrasting effects of consumption and raw materials tariffs on the dynamics of key measures of aggregate economic activity and inequality. We perform empirical estimation of these effects using a panel of annual data that spans the U.S. states over the period 1980–2015. We find that consumption tariff increases lead to statistically significant reductions in income inequality, while having contractionary effects on domestic output in the short term. Materials tariff increases also have a negative impact on economic activity while increasing income inequality. Our empirical results are robust to different model specifications and measures of income inequality, consistent with the predictions of the underlying theoretical model. This work shows the importance of disaggregating tariffs when studying the distributional effects of trade policy.

本文探讨了消费关税和材料关税的宏观经济和分配后果。它强调了消费税和原材料关税对总体经济活动和不平等的关键指标动态变化的影响。我们使用涵盖1980-2015年期间美国各州的年度数据面板对这些影响进行实证评估。我们发现，提高消费税率在统计上显着减少了收入不平等，同时在短期内对国内产出产生了收缩效应。材料关税的提高对经济活动也有负面影响，同时加剧了收入不平等。我们的实证结果对于不同的模型规格和收入不平等的衡量指标均十分可靠，与基础理论模型的预测一致。这项工作表明，在研究贸易政策的分配效应时，分解关税的重要性。