Optimal Tariffs: The Evidence

Christian Broda, Nuno Limão and David Weinstein

No 381, 2006 Meeting Papers from Society for Economic Dynamics

Abstract: The theoretical debate over whether countries can and should set tariffs in response to export elasticities goes back over a century to the writings of Edgeworth (1894) and Bickerdike (1907). Despite the optimal tariff argument's centrality in debates over trade policy, there exists no evidence about whether countries actually apply it when setting tariffs. We estimate disaggregate export elasticities and find evidence that countries that are not members of the World Trade Organization systematically set higher tariffs on goods that are supplied inelastically. The result is robust to the inclusion of political economy variables and a variety of model specifications. Moreover, we find that countries with higher aggregate market power have on average higher tariffs. In short, we find strong evidence in favor of the optimal tariff argument

Keywords: Optimal Tariffs; Trade Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 F11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Working Paper: Optimal Tariffs: The Evidence (2006)
Working Paper: Optimal Tariffs: The Evidence (2006)
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