PREFERENTIAL TRADE AGREEMENTS AND MULTILATERAL TARIFF COOPERATION*

Are preferential trade agreements (PTAs) building or stumbling blocks for multilateral trade liberalization? I address this question in an infinitely repeated tariff game between three countries engaged in intraindustry trade under oligopoly. The central result is that when countries are symmetric, a free trade agreement (FTA) undermines multilateral tariff cooperation by adversely affecting the cooperation incentive of the nonmember whereas a customs union (CU) does so via its effect on the cooperation incentives of members. However, when countries are asymmetric with respect to either market size or cost, there exist circumstances where PTAs facilitate multilateral tariff cooperation.     

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.     

Are Preferential Trade Agreements with Non-trade Objectives a Stumbling Block for Multilateral Liberalization?

In many preferential trade agreements (PTAs), countries exchange not only reductions in trade barriers but also cooperation in non-trade issues such as labour and environmental standards, intellectual property, etc. We provide a model of PTAs motivated by cooperation in non-trade issues and analyse its implications for global free trade and welfare. We find that such PTAs increase the cost of multilateral tariff reductions and thus cause a stumbling block to global free trade. This occurs because multilateral tariff reductions decrease the threat that can be used in PTAs and thus the surplus that can be extracted from them. By explicitly modelling the interaction between preferential and multilateral negotiations, we derive a testable prediction and provide novel econometric evidence that supports the model's key prediction. The welfare analysis shows that the current World Trade Organization rules allowing this type of PTAs may be optimal for economically large countries, thus the model can predict the rules we observe. We also analyse alternative rules that constitute a Pareto improvement.     

Sustaining multilateral cooperation among asymmetric countries: Does MFN help?

The most favored nation (MFN) clause is widely understood to be the central pillar of the global multilateral trading system. Does the MFN principle of non-discrimination facilitate multilateral cooperation? Using a repeated game approach, we address this question in an oligopolistic three country model of intraindustry trade where production costs differ across countries. The analysis delivers two main results. First, both under MFN and tariff discrimination the incentive constraint of the high cost country determines whether or not free trade is sustainable. Second, the high cost country is more willing to cooperate multilaterally under MFN relative to tariff discrimination.     

Are developed country multilateral tariff reductions necessarily beneficial for the U.S.?

Since the formation of the GATT in 1947, the belief underlying U.S. participation in GATT multilateral tariff reductions has been that they are beneficial to the U.S. This paper reports general equilibrium computations of the welfare effects of a 50% multilateral tariff reduction among developed countries using a seven region world trade model due to Whalley (1982).     

Developing-Country Benefits from MFN Relative to Regional/Bilateral Trade Arrangements

Using a general‐equilibrium model of world trade, this paper evaluates the benefits of most‐favored‐nation (MFN) treatment to developing countries in multilateral relative to bilateral or regional trade agreements, from three sources. First, developing countries may be able to free‐ride on bilateral tariff concessions exchanged between larger countries in MFN‐based GATT/WTO rounds. Second, MFN benefits developing countries by restricting discriminatory retaliatory actions by other countries, evaluated here by a non‐ cooperative Nash tariff game. Finally, MFN changes threat points in bargaining and hence affects the bargaining solution of multilateral MFN‐based trade negotiation compared to a bilateral/regional arrangement. The authors find that the benefits to developing countries are small in the first case as the tariff rates are already low, and the benefits are small in the second case as the optimal tariffs under unconstrained retaliation are not very asymmetric. Benefits from the third case are large as large countries can extract large side‐payments if they bargain bilaterally.     

The “Emulator Effect” of the Uruguay Round on US Regionalism

Using a detailed data set at the tariff line level, we find an emulator effect of multilateralism on subsequent regional trade agreements (RTAs) involving the USA. We exploit the variation in the frequency with which the US grants immediate duty free access (IDA) to its RTA partners across tariff lines. A key finding is that the US grants IDA status especially on goods for which it has cut the multilateral most favored nation (MFN) tariff during the Uruguay Round the most. Our results suggest that the Uruguay Round multilateral “concessions” have elicited subsequent preferential trade liberalization.     

Trade Structure, Transboundary Pollution and Multilateral Trade Liberalization: The Effects on Environmental Taxes and Welfare

This paper considers a trade situation where the production activities of potentially heterogeneous countries generate pollution which can cross borders and harm the well-being of all the countries involved. In each of those countries the policy maker levies pollution taxes on the polluting firms and a tariff on imports in order to correct that distortion. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the effect of a reduction in the tariff on equilibrium pollution taxes and welfare. The existing literature has investigated this problem for trade between two identical countries. This paper analyzes the problem in the more realistic context where countries are not necessarily identical and trade can be multilateral. It becomes possible to show what bias is introduced when those two realities are neglected. I find that a tariff reduction can actually lower output; it can also lower welfare even if pollution is purely local.     

PUBLIC INVESTMENT,TAX EVASION,AND THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF A TARIFF REFORM

Contrary to the case considered in literature, the experience of developing countries indicates that the tariff reforms have not been revenue neutral due to the heavy dependence of developing countries on trade taxes and pervasive tax evasion. In contrast to the plausibility of a welfare loss shown by the current literature, when the adverse effect of the loss of tariff revenue on public investment is factored in, the welfare outcome of the tariff reforms of past few decades turns out to be much more pessimistic. The constraints imposed by tariff dependence and tax evasion imply that future tariff reforms in these countries should be undertaken after strengthening their domestic tax system and augmenting the ability of their governments to fight tax evasion. For countries of sub‐Saharan Africa, where such reforms are likely to be concentrated, this would need planning and capacity building over a longer time horizon. (JEL D61, D62, F13, H26)     

Why Isn't the Doha Development Agenda more Poverty Friendly?

Critics of the Doha Development Agenda rightly point to the lack of aggressive reform in wealthy countries for its role in dampening developing country gains. The authors find that the absence of tariff cuts on staple food products in developing countries also critically limits poverty reduction in those countries. Based on their analysis of the impacts of multilateral trade policy reforms in a sample of 15 developing countries, they find there is some evidence of poverty increases amongst the poor who work in agriculture when they lose protection for their earnings. However, these effects are minimized when agricultural tariffs are cut in all developing countries, and when the impact of lower food prices on low income consumers is taken into account in their 15 country sample.     

Effects of Multilateral Trade Liberalization on Prices*

To analyze the effects of simultaneous tariff reductions by multiple importing countries on prices, we construct a simple three‐country model where a good is produced by a monopolist with nonconstant marginal cost and imported by two countries. We compare two representative tariff‐reduction formulas: the “fixed‐amount” and the “uniform percentage” reductions. The uniform percentage reductions may increase the consumer price in the importing country, whose initial tariff is lower. Thus, importing countries with relatively low tariffs may prefer a bilateral trade agreement to a multilateral one to ensure consumer gains.     

Regional versus Multilateral Trade Liberalization,Environmental Taxation,and Welfare

The paper considers trade between identical countries with imperfectly competitive markets, and compares the impacts of regional and multilateral tariff reduction on strategic environmental taxation and welfare. While both forms of trade liberalization increase production and consumption in tariff‐reducing countries, regionalism also reduces production in a non‐participating country and may decrease its consumption. Consequently, regionalism and multilateralism change pollution tax and welfare in the tariff‐reducing countries in similar ways when pollution is local, but in dissimilar ways for global pollution. When pollution is global, regionalism is likely to be preferred to multilateralism for the establishment of free trade among countries.     

Non-tariff measures: What's tariffs got to do with it?

After successive rounds of tariff reductions by GATT/WTO members, non-tariff measures (NTMs) have increasingly become the focal point of multilateral trade negotiations. It remains an open question whether the liberalization in tariff rates has subsequently been weakened or even erased by increases in NTMs. Using a product-level global panel of WTO members over the period 1996–2019, this paper systematically examines the empirical link between various tariff measures and the imposition of NTMs. I find that bound or applied tariff reductions do not correlate much on their own with NTM incidence. The relevant trade policy margin for detecting a tariff–NTM nexus is instead tariff overhangs, the difference between WTO members' bound and applied tariff rates. Countries impose more NTMs when their sectoral applied tariffs are close to their respective bound rates, indicating that small tariff overhangs signal limited legal trade policy flexibility.     

多边贸易谈判中的政策协调与交易

针对目前多边贸易谈判过程中出现的愈演愈烈的双边(诸边)合作和发展中国家的不断边际化问题,本文分别从国家和议题的视角对多边贸易谈判中的政策协调与交易进行了分析,指出国际经济领域将长期表现为多边合作和双边(诸边)合作的并行发展,建议发展中国家应充分利用谈判议题的互换来影响国际经济规则的制定。     

A Political‐Economic Account of Global Tariffs

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the relative importance of three distinct factors that motivate redistributive government policy: tariff revenues, consumer welfare, and producer profits. We generalize Grossman and Helpman's (1994, American Economic Review 84: 833–850). protection‐for‐sale model by positing that government places different weights on these components of the welfare of its polity when it decides which industries to protect and to what extent. Employing tariff data from 40 countries, the predictions from this model are used to estimate these weights. The results are surprising in their range and variety. Developing countries with weak tax systems often weigh tariff revenue heavily, while more developed countries weigh producer interests the most. Very few hold consumer welfare dear.     

Economic integration in an uneven world: an internationalist perspective

This paper discusses two progressive schools of thought that have evolved in response to international neoliberalism and the consequent competitive pressures in global markets emanating from the low-cost conditions obtained in many less developed countries. The paper identifies these as the ‘competitiveness-enhancing’ and the ‘competition-reducing’ approaches. The former is shown to be ill-suited to present circumstances of the global economy and, in any event, nationalist. The latter seeks to minimize the adverse consequences of international neoliberalism, and comprises proposals for expansive social charters and social tariffs. The paper provides a theoretical basis for this approach, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each of these proposals. The paper then develops and defends a new multilateral, rule-based trade proposal, called the ‘social index tariff structure’ (SITS), which would reward nations for high levels of development achieved relative to their economic means. Drawing on human development data from the Human Development Report (1993), a SITS-based trading scheme is developed for 77 countries. It is argued that a SITS regime would serve to protect the quality of life in developed countries while promoting human development in the less developed countries. The SITS proposal is assessed against Amartya Sen's ‘capabilities to achieve functionings’ approach to human development.     

INTERNATIONAL TRADE BARGAINING AND THE MOST-FAVORED-NATION CLAUSE*

This paper advances a model of multilateral trade negotiations to analyze the effects of the most-favored-nation clause (MFN) on international trade agreements. Negotiations are modeled in a three player, non-cooperative, dynamic bargaining framework that admits the possibility of both bilateral and multilateral agreements. The central result is that bargaining in the presence of MFN results in Pareto efficient, mutually advantageous, multilateral trade agreements. The free-rider problem commonly attributed to the presence of MFN does not arise, and, under a condition of symmetry, each country receives equal gains (or reciprocity) from the agreement. In the absence of MFN, many of these properties may not hold. Examples are given in which at most two of the three countries benefit from agreement. These results suggest that many of the criticisms levied against the MFN clause are misplaced; moreover, attempts to replace unconditional MFN with conditional MFN may sacrifice many of the long-held values of the GATT.     

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.     

Analyzing the System of Preferential Tariffs for Least Developed Countries

This paper analyzes the rents available from non‐reciprocal preferential tariffs for least developed countries (LDCs) on all exports to the quad countries at the tariff line level. Most of the rents come from the European Union (EU) in clothing and textiles, while the USA and Canada offer few rents and charge significant tariffs to LDCs. We develop a dual economy labor market model that generates an income distribution and simulates the distributional effects of preferences. We find that the benefits of the preferences outweigh any adverse distributional effects. Relative inequality may increase with preferences in some cases, but absolute incomes increase in every case. We conclude that in the absence of multilateral liberalization, preferences are beneficial to some LDCs and expansion of preferences is desirable. In the event of multilateral liberalization, an import subsidy scheme that maintains the rents is the most desirable outcome.     

Multilateral Organisations and the Limits to International Energy Cooperation

Surging world energy prices, increasing oil market volatility and a nascent ‘energy transition’ are posing major challenges for global energy governance. In response, there has been a proliferation in the number of multilateral bodies addressing energy issues in recent years, and a wide range of organisations now claim a role in facilitating intergovernmental energy cooperation. However, the practical achievements of these organisations have been very poor, with all suffering difficulties that have limited their ability to promote shared energy interests between states. This article examines the dynamics of multilateral energy organisations, arguing that the political economy features of energy – securitisation and attendant patterns of economic nationalism – explain why they have failed to develop more robust cooperative mechanisms. Ten global-level organisations are evaluated and found to suffer from membership, design or commitment issues that limit their effectiveness in global energy governance. These challenges are linked to the securitisation of energy, which has led governments to favour low-cost soft-law approaches over potentially more effective hard-law institutional designs. Moreover, the securitisation of energy poses limits for how far multilateral energy cooperation can proceed and means that contemporary efforts to strengthen these organisations are unlikely to succeed in coming years.