Toy import and recall levels

Analysts have often dubbed China as the ‘workshop of the world.’ This is particularly true for the US$71 billion global toy industry.2 Approximately 60% of the toys sold across the world are made in China. [...] The rise of China came at the expense of other toy exporting countries, whose combined share of toy imports to the US plummeted from 59% to 14% during the same period. [...] The recall notices typically include information on where the toy was manufactured, the quantity of toys recalled, the average sales price of the toys and relevant dates. [...] Our measure does not capture the recalls as an exact percentage of imports because the sale price in the US includes a margin over the import cost and thus will be higher than the cost of imports. [...] The coding was reliable given the ambiguity of the recall notices, which are often carefully crafted not to place blame.9 Although the assessment of defect type is subjective, the consistency of the coding gives us sufficient confidence in the results to allow us to draw conclusions about general patterns.