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Unilateral tariff liberalisation

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  • Richard Baldwin

Abstract

Unilateral tariff liberalisation by developing nations is pervasive but our understanding of it is shallow. This paper strives to partly redress this lacuna on the theory side by introducing three novel political economy mechanisms with particular emphasis is on the role of production unbundling. One mechanism studies how lowering frictional barriers to imported parts can destroy the correlation of interests between parts producers and their downstream customers. A second mechanism studies how Kojima’s pro-trade FDI raises the political economy cost of maintaining high upstream barriers. The third works via a general equilibrium channel whereby developing country’s participation in the supply chains of advanced-nation industries undermines their own competitiveness in final goods, thus making final good protection more politically costly. In essence, developing nations’ pursuit of the export-processing industrialisation undermines their infant-industry industrialisation strategies.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University in its series Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series with number gd10-159.

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Date of creation: Jan 2011
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Handle: RePEc:hst:ghsdps:gd10-159

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Keywords: unilateral tariff liberalisation; race-to-the-bottom; political economy;

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References

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  1. Emanuel Ornelas, 2005. "Rent Destruction and the Political Viability of Free Trade Agreements," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 120(4), pages 1475-1506, November.
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Cited by:
  1. Bas, Maria & Bombarda, Pamela, 2013. "Chinese trade reforms, market access and foreign competition: the patterns of French exporters," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6330, The World Bank.

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