Special Interest Groups and Trade Policy in the EU

The aim of this work is to employ theoretical and empirical analysis on the role of special interest groups in the determination of the EU trade policy. We build a two-stage game model of trade policy formation in a multisector-multicountry framework. We obtain the level of protection as a function of industry characteristics, in addition to political and economic factors at member state and European levels. The model is then tested by 2SLS estimation using data for 15 countries and 41 sectors. The econometric output suggests empirical support to model’s predictions as it highlights an important role for both national and European groups in trade policy making.