Welfare versus Market Access: The Implications of Tariff Structure for Tariff Reform

James Anderson and J. Peter Neary

No 601, Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics

Abstract: We show that the effects of tariff changes on welfare and import volume can be fully characterised by their effects on the generalised mean and variance of the tariff distribution. Using these tools, we derive new results for welfare- and market-access-improving tariff changes, which imply two "cones of liberalisation" in price space. Because welfare is negatively but import volume positively related to the generalised variance, the cones do not intersect, which poses a dilemma for trade policy reform. Finally, we show that generalised and trade-weighted moments are mutually proportional when the trade expenditure function is CES.

Keywords: Concertina rule; Market access; Piecemeal policy reform; Tariff moments; Uniform tariff reductions. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-08-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Welfare versus market access: The implications of tariff structure for tariff reform (2007)
Working Paper: Welfare versus market access: the implications of tariff structure for tariff reform (2004)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:boc:bocoec:601

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