摘要
This article empirically investigates the role of import intermediaries in Canada and discusses how public policies can affect them. Among the main results is that intermediaries are shown to play a very different role with respect to manufacturers and retailers regarding differentiated and complex products, but their role is qualitatively the same across North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and non-NAFTA countries, and the share of intermediaries’ imports is always boosted by a greater mass of small domestic manufacturers and retailers. These results suggest that import wholesalers play an important role in the Canadian economy, especially with respect to domestic manufacturers, and that policy-makers should be mindful of policy impacts on this sector.