China's reported exports to the United States have long been smaller than U.S.-reported imports from China. Earlier explanations for this focused on re-exports through Hong Kong, and appeared to account for most of the difference. Now, even after taking Hong Kong into account properly, there has...

We look for evidence that heterogeneity of goods influences how the goods are traded internationally, whether via an intermediary in the form of a wholesaler, within the firm via intra firm trade, or at arms-length between firms. Making use of a unique data set of U.S. industries we find that...