Protection for sale or surge protection?

This paper asks whether the results obtained from using the standard approach to testing the influential Grossman and Helpman “protection for sale” model of political economy might arise from a simpler setting. A model of imports and quotas with protection occurring in response to import surges, but only for organized industries, is simulated and shown to provide parameter estimates consistent with the protection for sale framework. This suggests that the standard approach may be less of a test than previously thought.     

Measuring China’s trade liberalization: A generalized measure of trade restrictiveness index

Neither simple average nor import-weighted average tariff indexes are ideal measures of tariff barriers. In this paper, we propose a generalized trade restrictiveness index (GTRI) that extends Feenstra’s (1995) tariff restrictiveness index (TRI) by relaxing the crucial assumption of a small open economy. We show that the GTRI can be measured using import tariffs, import shares, and the corresponding import and foreign export elasticities. We then apply the GTRI to examine how trade restrictiveness has evolved in China from 1997 to 2008, the period in which China entered the WTO. The GTRI indicates a higher level of protection than simple and import-weighted averages, but lower than the TRI. We further show a negative correlation between tariffs and product export supply elasticity, indicating that strategic trade policy was being pursued prior to China’s WTO accession. Finally, we calculate the welfare loss and terms-of-trade gain due to tariff protection. The overall tariff pass-through increases from around 28% to almost 47% because of the WTO.     

The chilling trade effects of antidumping proliferation

Advocates of antidumping (AD) laws downplay their negative effects by arguing that the trade flows that are subject to AD are small and their distortions negligible. But while the adverse effect of AD on product-level trade has long been established, the question remains whether there are trade effects at the aggregate level. The recent proliferation wave of AD laws and their use provides us with a unique policy change to estimate the true trade effects of adopting and enforcing AD laws. For this purpose, we estimate the effect of AD on bilateral trade flows between the “new adopters” of AD laws and their trade partners. Using a gravity model of annual observations (1980-2000) our estimates show that AD has trade chilling effects on aggregate import volumes but the impacts are heterogeneous across sectors. We find that new tough users experience a chilling of their aggregate imports of 14 billion US$ a year (or 5.9%) as a result of AD measures. For some countries like Mexico and India, the dampening effects of AD laws on trade flows are found to substantially offset the increase in trade volumes derived from trade liberalization.     

Financial reforms,product differentiation,and trade

We hypothesize that exports of differentiated products, which entail greater upfront costs, increase more as financial reforms take place. We find strong and robust empirical support of this hypothesis with a comprehensive set of measures of reforms encompassing the banking sector, interest rates, equity and international capital markets.     

How do transport costs affect firms’ exports? Evidence from a vanishing bridge

In this paper we provide estimates of the effects of international transport costs on firms’ exports and disentangle the channels of these effects. In so doing, we use a unique dataset consisting of highly disaggregated transaction-level trade and transport cost data and, in order to account for endogeneity, we exploit the exogenous variation in these costs associated with the non-trade related closure of the main bridge connecting two countries.     

International trade and consumption network externalities

This paper studies the effects of trade liberalization in the presence of consumption network externalities. The framework is applicable to the choice of network products and sheds light on the debate on globalization and culture. In an extended Ricardian model of international trade the paper shows that: (i) trade is not Pareto inferior to autarky if the free trade equilibrium is unique; (ii) trade is not Pareto superior to autarky if both countries are diverse (network competition) under free trade, but can be if each country is homogenous (network monopoly); (iii) and when multiple free trade equilibria exist everybody in a country can lose from free trade if that country is homogenous under autarky. Consumers of imported network goods tend to gain, while consumers of exported network goods tend to lose from trade liberalization.     

On the trade-diversion effects of free trade agreements

Trade-diversion effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) have not been thoroughly examined empirically. Using a novel empirical approach, we confirm that FTAs divert trade away from non-member countries and even more so from internal trade (domestic sales) in member countries.     

Price dispersion across US districts of entry

Price dispersion of US imports are investigated across US districts of entry. Markups explain about 31% of price dispersion, while marginal costs of production explain about 69%; effects of trade costs, for which we have actual data, are almost none.     

The MFN clause,welfare, and multilateral cooperation between countries of unequal size

This paper analyzes MFN in a “competing exporters” model of trade between three countries with unequal endowments and shows that MFN yields higher aggregate welfare than tariff discrimination even as it makes low income countries worse off. Furthermore, in a repeated game of tariff cooperation, multilateral free trade is easier to sustain under MFN punishments relative to discriminatory ones. This conclusion holds even when tariff discrimination takes the form of bilateral trade agreements. Overall, the analysis shows that from the viewpoint of low income countries, MFN and multilateral tariff cooperation are complementary in nature.     

The role of importers and exporters in the determination of the U.S. tariff preferences granted to Latin America

This paper investigates the role played by domestic importers and foreign exporters in improving preferential access to the domestic market. To this end, the framework used in this paper extends the protection for sale analysis to explicitly model the role of domestic importers and foreign exporters in the determination of preferential trade treatment. The predictions of the model are tested using data on preferential trade between the United States and Latin American countries. The results suggest that Latin American exporters and US importers' lobbying efforts have a significant and important role in determining the extent of preferential access granted by the United States. More interestingly, these findings also show that U.S. importers capture a very substantial share of the rents generated by tariff preferences. These results therefore shed a pessimistic view on preferential trade schemes as a reliable source of gains for developing countries.     

Does antidumping use contribute to trade liberalization in developing countries?

Abstract .  Some supporters of antidumping have argued that this procedure serves as a kind of 'safety valve' for protectionist pressure. In this paper, we investigate whether there is empirical evidence that the use of antidumping actions has contributed to ongoing tariff reductions over the period 1988 to 2004 in a sample of 23 developing countries, some of which have become aggressive users of antidumping in recent years. The evidence is not supportive of the safety valve argument for these countries. Instead, evidence suggests that past use of antidumping may have led to less rather than more trade liberalization.     

On the emergence of an MFN club: equal treatment in an unequal world

Abstract .  Motivated by GATT, we endogenize the formation of a club whose members have to abide by the MFN principle of non-discrimination. The underlying model is that of oligopolistic intraindustry trade. While an MFN club does not alter average tariff levels across countries, it increases aggregate world welfare; makes non-members worse off; and can immiserize its high cost members. These results imply that (i) core WTO rules such as MFN are valuable even if multilateral negotiations deliver limited trade liberalization and (ii) the distributional effects of MFN maybe one reason why developing countries have been granted Special and Differential treatment at the WTO.     

Trade diversion from tomato suspension agreements

Abstract .  Trade barriers can cause output to be diverted to other countries and into other products. We study the effect of a voluntary price restraint (VPR) on Mexican tomatoes entering the United States. The diversion caused by the VPR is statistically and economically significant – representing over four-fifths of the direct effects of the trade barrier. When the VPR was binding, Mexico exported more tomatoes to Canada, the United States cut back on exports while Canada increased their exports to the United States. The VPR also diverted fresh tomatoes in Mexico into paste production, which was then exported to the United States.