Tariff pass-through is critical for considering the benefits of trade liberalization, the beneficiaries, and the extent. This study empirically examines the tariff pass-through in wholesaling through the wholesale firm-level data in Japan. In particular, the study focuses on wholesalers’ margin ratio, that is, (sales – procurements) / sales. We address the endogeneity concerns on the measurement errors of the study variables of margin ratio and tariffs. Consequently, the study found that importing wholesalers significantly raised their margin ratio against tariff reduction. On average, a 1 percentage point reduction of tariffs raised the margin ratio by approximately 0.25 percentage point. This rise is equivalent to that of sales prices to procurement prices by about 0.34 %, indicating that Japanese wholesalers capture one-third of the tariff rent. However, the study also found that a tariff reduction lowers the margin ratio of wholesalers who procure their products from domestic producers.

关税转嫁对于考虑贸易自由化的好处、受益者和程度至关重要。本研究通过日本批发企业层面的数据实证检验了批发中的关税传递。特别是，该研究侧重于批发商的利润率，即（销售额 - 采购）/销售额。我们解决了边际比率和关税研究变量的测量误差的内生性问题。因此，研究发现进口批发商显着提高了他们对关税削减的保证金比率。平均而言，关税每降低 1 个百分点，利润率就会提高约 0.25 个百分点。这一涨幅相当于销售价格对采购价格的涨幅约0.34%，表明日本批发商获得了三分之一的关税租金。