 Protectionism and the business cycleAlessandro Barattieri, Matteo Cacciatore and Fabio Ghironi Journal of International Economics, 2021, vol. 129, issue C Abstract: We study the macroeconomic effects of protectionism. First, using high-frequency trade policy data, we present fresh evidence on the dynamic effects of temporary trade barriers. Estimates from country-level and panel VARs show that protectionism acts as a supply shock, causing output to fall and inflation to rise in the short run. Moreover, protectionism has at best a small positive effect on the trade balance. Second, we build a small open economy model with firm heterogeneity, endogenous selection into trade, and nominal rigidity that successfully reproduces the VAR evidence. The model highlights the importance of aggregate investment dynamics and micro-level reallocations for the contractionary effects of tariffs. We then use the model to study scenarios where temporary trade barriers have been advocated as potentially beneficial, including recessions with binding constraints on monetary policy easing or in the presence of a fixed exchange rate. In all the scenarios we consider, protectionism is not an effective tool for macroeconomic stimulus. Keywords: Inflation; Liquidity trap; Macroeconomic dynamics; Protectionism; Tariffs (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:inecon:v:129:y:2021:i:c:s002219962030132x DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2020.103417 Access Statistics for this article Journal of International Economics is currently edited by Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and RodrÃguez-Clare, Andrés More articles in Journal of International Economics from Elsevier |
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