Most models of trade policy determination and rent-seeking abstract from the problem of commitment: both the politician's commitment to implement a policy and the lobbyist's commitment to contribute to the politician. This article shows that the commitment problem is a static prisoner's dilemma, in which neither lobbying nor inefficient policies occur. The only way to rationalize the existence of lobbying and protection within a finite time horizon is in a repeated game with uncertain duration. I construct a model in which the uncertainty comes from periodic elections. The model has implications for redistribution and political influence across political systems and institutions.
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Volume (Year): 8 (2005) Issue (Month): 3 (September) Pages: 175-188 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Kaempfer, William H. & Tower, Edward & Willett, Thomas D., 2002.
"Trade Protectionism,"
Working Papers
02-20, Duke University, Department of Economics.
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