Trade policy instruments over time

Chad Bown

No 6757, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper surveys political-economic research on the variety of instruments that governments use to conduct international trade policy. It presents key insights on the relationships between instruments such as tariffs, quotas, voluntary export restraints, and other nontariff barriers, as well as the ebb and flow of the national use of temporary trade barriers such as antidumping, countervailing duties, and safeguards. The survey examines trends in use of these trade policy instruments over recent history; and it reviews the major theoretical and empirical explanations behind, and interrelationships between, their uses. Finally, the paper highlights potential institutional impacts of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and subsequent World Trade Organization (WTO) on choice of policy instruments, as well as how multilateral, unilateral, and preferential tariff liberalization may introduce political-economic shocks and affect incentives over time for how governments rely on different instruments.

Keywords: Free Trade; Trade Law; Trade Policy; International Trade and Trade Rules; Economic Theory&Research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... ered/PDF/WPS6757.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:wbk:wbrwps:6757

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi (ryazigi@worldbank.org).