Should We Tax Trade? A Pigouvian Perspective

Arnaud Costinot and Iván Werning

No 35461, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We develop a simple and intuitive Pigouvian perspective on optimal trade policy. Our approach unifies a wide range of rationales for taxing trade, from the classical optimal tariff argument to contemporary debates about global carbon emissions and geopolitics. We also clarify when trade policy intervention is warranted and when alternative domestic instruments should be used instead.

JEL-codes: F10 F13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-07
Note: ITI
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w35461.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35461

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w35461
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().