Trade Agreements as Endogenously Incomplete Contracts

Henrik Horn, Giovanni Maggi and Robert Staiger

No 12745, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We propose a model of trade agreements in which contracting is costly, and as a consequence the optimal agreement may be incomplete. In spite of its simplicity, the model yields rich predictions on the structure of the optimal trade agreement and how this depends on the fundamentals of the contracting environment. We argue that taking contracting costs explicitly into account can help explain a number of key features of real trade agreements.

JEL-codes: D02 F1 F13 F15 F51 F53 F59 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int
Note: ITI
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Published as Henrik Horn & Giovanni Maggi & Robert W. Staiger, 2010. "Trade Agreements as Endogenously Incomplete Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 394-419, March.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12745.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Trade Agreements as Endogenously Incomplete Contracts (2010)
Working Paper: Trade Agreements as Endogenously Incomplete Contracts (2007)
Working Paper: Trade Agreements as Endogenously Incomplete Contracts (2007)
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:12745

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12745

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 ().