Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from Trump’s Trade Wars

Thiemo Fetzer and Carlo Schwarz

CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE)

Abstract: We use the recent trade escalation between the US and its trade partners to study whether retaliatory tariffs are politically targeted. We find comprehensive evidence using individual- and aggregate voting data suggesting that retaliation is carefully targeted to hurt Trump. We develop a simulation approach to construct counterfactual retaliation responses allowing us to both quantify the extent of political targeting, while also studying potential tradeoffs. China, appears to put a large weight on achieving maximal political targeting. The EU seems successful in maximizing political targeting, while at the same time minimizing the potential damage to its economy.

Keywords: : trade war; tariff; targeting; political economy; elections; populism JEL Classification: F13; F14; F16; F55; D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-int and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/c ... 9_fetzer_schwarz.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from Trump’s Trade Wars (2021)
Working Paper: Tariffs and politics: evidence from Trump's trade wars (2019)
Working Paper: Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from Trump's Trade Wars (2019)
Working Paper: Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from Trump’s Trade Wars (2019)
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:cge:wacage:407

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jane Snape ().