Non-Tariff Barriers as a Test of Political Economy Theories

Philip Levy

No 28526, Center Discussion Papers from Yale University, Economic Growth Center

Abstract: This paper provides a rough test of a broad and prominent class of political economy of trade models and finds them wanting. The class features governments with weighted social welfare functions, including the prominent model of Grossman and Helpman. Whether the government is the single domestic player or there are other players involved (as with the lobbies in the Grossman-Helpman case) the government ultimately acts as a unitary player in international dealings. Recent work has shown that such unitary actors care exclusively about terms of trade in international negotiations. This paper pursues the implication that governments' choice of trade instruments may offer a better test of the unitary government framework than existing empirical work. We use the structure of United States protection to argue that governments consistently choose instruments that sacrifice terms of trade, thus casting doubt on the unitary approach. We offer a discussion of alternative theories of political economy that could accommodate this stylized fact.

Keywords: International Relations/Trade; Political Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/28526/files/dp030852.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Non-Tariff Barriers as a Test of Political Economy Theories (2003)
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:ags:yaleeg:28526

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.28526

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Center Discussion Papers from Yale University, Economic Growth Center Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().