A Protectionist Bias in Majoritarian Politics
Gene Grossman and
Elhanan Helpman
No 11014, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Abstract:
We develop a novel model of campaigns, elections, and policymaking in which the ex ante objectives of national party leaders differ from the ex post objectives of elected legislators. This generates a distinction between "policy rhetoric" and "policy reality" and introduces an important role for "party discipline" in the policymaking process. We identify a protectionist bias in majoritarian politics. When trade policy is chosen by the majority delegation and legislators in the minority have limited means to influence choices, the parties announce trade policies that favor specific factors, and the expected tariff or export subsidy is positive. Positions and expected outcomes monotonically approach free trade as party discipline strengthens.
JEL-codes: D72 F13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol
Note: ITI POL
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)
Published as Grossman, Gene M. and Elhanan Helpman. "A Protectionist Bias In Majoritarian Politics," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2005, v120(4,Nov), 11239-1282.
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11014.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: A Protectionist Bias in Majoritarian Politics (2005) 
Working Paper: A Protectionist Bias in Majoritarian Politics (2005) 
Working Paper: A Protectionist Bias in Majoritarian Politics (2004) 
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:11014
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11014
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 ().