Jealousy of Trade: Exclusionary Preferences and Economic Nationalism

Alex Imas, Kristóf Madarász and Heather Sarsons

No 34351, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper presents a new framework for understanding economic nationalism based on an empirically-validated desire for mimetic dominance that generates a preference for exclusionary policies. We incorporate such preferences into a frictionless model of international trade. Exclusionary preferences lead people to favor tariffs and protectionist policies that harm both their trading partner’s and their own consumption. This implies that higher prices caused by exclusionary policies like tariffs will be more acceptable than those caused by non-exclusionary policies. We provide support for these predictions through two survey experiments, which also account for the role of cognitive biases and misinformation.

JEL-codes: D9 P00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-10
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