Political support for trade policy in the European Union

Joseph Francois and Douglas Nelson

European Journal of Political Economy, 2014, vol. 36, issue C, 243-253

Abstract: We adopt the Stigler–Peltzman model of policy-making as developed by Hillman for application to the politics of international trade, in which the government is represented by a political support function trading-off the industry rents stemming from protection against the losses accruing to the general population. As a starting point, we examine the economic impact of actual government action as revealed by the structure of protection, backing out the weights implied by the marginal welfare effects of the set of EU import tariffs across sectors. We build on Tyers' application of methods to international trade employing a numerical general equilibrium model of the EU. This captures direct marginal effects of sector-level protection on protected industries, indirect effects on upstream and downstream industries, and the effect on overall welfare. We then deconstruct the revealed weighting pattern along the lines of industry nationality and related industry characteristics.

Keywords: Political support; Endogenous tariffs; Revealed political weights; EU trade policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 F13 F14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:36:y:2014:i:c:p:243-253

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2014.08.001

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