IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wti/papers/889.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Political support for trade policy in the European Union

Author

Listed:
  • Francois, Joseph

Abstract

We adopt the Stigler–Peltzman model of policy-making as developed by Hillman for application to the politics of international trade, in which the government is represented by a political support function trading-off the industry rents stemming from protection against the losses accruing to the general population. As a starting point, we examine the economic impact of actual government action as revealed by the structure of protection, backing out the weights implied by the marginal welfare effects of the set of EU import tariffs across sectors. We build on Tyers' application of methods to international trade employing a numerical general equilibrium model of the EU. This captures direct marginal effects of sector-level protection on protected industries, indirect effects on upstream and downstream industries, and the effect on overall welfare. We then deconstruct the revealed weighting pattern along the lines of industry nationality and related industry characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Francois, Joseph, 2014. "Political support for trade policy in the European Union," Papers 889, World Trade Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:wti:papers:889
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.wti.org/media/filer_public/24/3a/243a4bd3-4e57-4f34-9de0-61bf1a8a6da7/francois_nelson_ejpe2014.pdf
    File Function: First version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kishore Gawande & Usree Bandyopadhyay, 2000. "Is Protection for Sale? Evidence on the Grossman-Helpman Theory of Endogenous Protection," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 139-152, February.
    2. Johan F.M. Swinnen & Harry de Gorter, 1998. "Endogenous Commodity Policies and the Social Benefits from Public Research Expenditures," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-115.
    3. Rausser, Gordon C & Freebairn, John W, 1974. "Estimation of Policy Preference Functions: An Application to U.S. Beef Import Quotas," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 56(4), pages 437-449, November.
    4. Thomas W. Ross, 1984. "Uncovering Regulators' Social Welfare Weights," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(1), pages 152-155, Spring.
    5. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "Trade Wars and Trade Talks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(4), pages 675-708, August.
    6. Hillman, Arye L, 1982. "Declining Industries and Political-Support Protectionist Motives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1180-1187, December.
    7. Ahmad, Ehtisham & Stern, Nicholas, 1984. "The theory of reform and indian indirect taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 259-298, December.
    8. Olivier Cadot & Jaime de Melo & Marcelo Olarreaga, 2015. "Lobbying, Counterlobbying, and the Structure of Tariff Protection in Poor and Rich Countries," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Modeling Developing Countries' Policies in General Equilibrium, chapter 13, pages 295-316, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Braillard, S. Lael & Verdier, Thierry, 1994. "Lobbying and adjustment in declining industries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(3-4), pages 586-595, April.
    10. Bruce L. Gardner, 1989. "Economic Theory and Farm Politics," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 71(5), pages 1165-1171.
    11. Kreps,David M. & Wallis,Kenneth F. (ed.), 1997. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521589819.
    12. Trefler, Daniel, 1993. "Trade Liberalization and the Theory of Endogenous Protection: An Econometric Study of U.S. Import Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(1), pages 138-160, February.
    13. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "The Politics of Free-Trade Agreements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 667-690, September.
    14. Bruce Gardner, 1983. "Efficient Redistribution through Commodity Markets," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 65(2), pages 225-234.
    15. Tyers, Rod, 1990. "Implicit policy preferences and the assessment of negotiable trade policy reforms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1399-1426, November.
    16. Carl Davidson & Steve Matusz & Doug Nelson, 2006. "Fairness and the Political Economy of Trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 989-1004, August.
    17. Peter Egger & Mario Larch & Kevin E. Staub & Rainer Winkelmann, 2011. "The Trade Effects of Endogenous Preferential Trade Agreements," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 113-143, August.
    18. Brainard, S. Lael & Verdier, Thierry, 1997. "The political economy of declining industries: Senescent industry collapse revisited," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 221-237, February.
    19. Thierry Mayer & Gianmarco Ottaviano, 2008. "The Happy Few: The Internationalisation of European Firms," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 43(3), pages 135-148, May.
    20. Alexander H. Sarris & John Freebairn, 1983. "Endogenous Price Policies and International Wheat Prices," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 65(2), pages 214-224.
    21. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    22. Van Long, Ngo & Vousden, Neil, 1991. "Protectionist responses and declining industries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 87-103, February.
    23. Devashish Mitra & Dimitrios D. Thomakos & Mehmet A. Ulubaşoĝlu, 2016. "Protection Versus Promotion: An Empirical Investigation," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: The Political Economy of Trade Policy Theory, Evidence and Applications, chapter 12, pages 221-236, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    24. J.M. Finger & H. Keith Hall & Douglas R. Nelson, 2002. "The Political Economy of Administered Protection," Chapters, in: Institutions and Trade Policy, chapter 8, pages 81-95, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    25. Mayer, Wolfgang, 1984. "Endogenous Tariff Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 970-985, December.
    26. Johan F. M. Swinnen, 1994. "A Positive Theory of Agricultural Protection," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 76(1), pages 1-14.
    27. Kishore Gawande, 1998. "Comparing Theories Of Endogenous Protection: Bayesian Comparison Of Tobit Models Using Gibbs Sampling Output," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 128-140, February.
    28. Patrick A. Messerlin, 2001. "Measuring the Costs of Protection in Europe: European Commercial Policy in the 2000s," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 102, October.
    29. Patrick Messerlin, 2001. "Measuring the costs of protection in Europe : European commercial policy in the 2000s," Post-Print hal-03394451, HAL.
    30. Choi, Jay Pil, 2001. "Protectionist response to import competition in declining industries reconsidered," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 193-201, March.
    31. Tavares, Samia, 2006. "Deeper Integration and Voting on the Common European External Tariff," MPRA Paper 960, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    32. Giovanni Maggi & Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, 1999. "Protection for Sale: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1135-1155, December.
    33. Gardner, Bruce L, 1987. "Causes of U.S. Farm Commodity Programs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(2), pages 290-310, April.
    34. Gawande, Kishore, 1998. "Stigler-Olson lobbying behavior in protectionist industries: Evidence from the lobbying power function," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 477-499, May.
    35. Kreps,David M. & Wallis,Kenneth F. (ed.), 1997. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521589833.
    36. Cadot, Olivier & de Melo, Jaime & Olarraga, Marcelo, 1999. "Regional Integration and Lobbying for Tariffs against Nonmembers," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(3), pages 635-657, August.
    37. Pinhas Zusman & Amotz Amiad, 1977. "A Quantitative Investigation of a Political Economy—The Israeli Dairy Program," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 59(1), pages 88-98.
    38. Christiansen, Vidar & Jansen, Eilev S., 1978. "Implicit social preferences in the Norwegian system of indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 217-245, October.
    39. Hertel, Thomas, 2013. "Global Applied General Equilibrium Analysis Using the Global Trade Analysis Project Framework," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 815-876, Elsevier.
    40. By Kishore Gawande & Pravin Krishna & Marcelo Olarreaga, 2012. "Lobbying Competition Over Trade Policy," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(1), pages 115-132, February.
    41. Carl Davidson & Steven J. Matusz & Douglas Nelson, 2012. "A Behavioral Model of Unemployment, Sociotropic Concerns, and the Political Economy of Trade Policy," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 72-94, March.
    42. Zusman, Pinhas, 1976. "The Incorporation and Measurement of Social Power in Economic Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 17(2), pages 447-462, June.
    43. Rod Tyers, 2004. "Implicit Policy Preferences and Trade Reform by Tariff Aggregates," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2004-445, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    44. Samia Costa Tavares, 2007. "The Common External Tariff In A Customs Union: Voting, Logrolling, And National Government Interests," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 345-368, November.
    45. Swinnen, Jo, 1996. "Endogenous Price and Trade Policy Developments in Central European Agriculture," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 23(2), pages 133-160.
    46. Marianna Belloc & Paolo Guerrieri, 2008. "Special Interest Groups and Trade Policy in the EU," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 457-478, September.
    47. Antoine Bouët & Yvan Decreux & Lionel Fontagné & Sébastien Jean & David Laborde, 2004. "A Consistent, Ad-Valorem Equivalent Measure of Applied Protection Across the World: The MAcMap-HS6 Database," Working Papers 2004-22, CEPII research center.
    48. John C. Beghin, 1990. "A Game-Theoretic Model of Endogenous Public Policies," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 72(1), pages 138-148.
    49. Kreps,David M. & Wallis,Kenneth F. (ed.), 1997. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Applications," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521589826.
    50. Peltzman, Sam, 1976. "Toward a More General Theory of Regulation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 211-240, August.
    51. Ronald Findlay & Stanislaw Wellisz, 1982. "Endogenous Tariffs, the Political Economy of Trade Restrictions, and Welfare," NBER Chapters, in: Import Competition and Response, pages 223-244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    52. Cassing, James H & Hillman, Arye L, 1986. "Shifting Comparative Advantage and Senescent Industry Collapse," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 516-523, June.
    53. Constantopoulos, Maria, 1974. "Labour protection in Western Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 313-328, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francois, Joseph & Nelson, Douglas & Rojas-Romagosa, Hugo, 2019. "Trade Wars and Trade Disputes: The Role of Equity and Political Support," Conference papers 333046, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    2. Tushar Bharati & Mohammad Farhad & Michael Jetter, 2023. "On the relationship between trade openness and government size," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(7), pages 2102-2133, July.
    3. Timini, Jacopo, 2020. "Staying dry on Spanish wine: The rejection of the 1905 Spanish-Italian trade agreement," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    4. Saha, Amrita, 2019. "Trade policy & lobbying effectiveness: Theory and evidence for India," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 165-192.
    5. Wilfred J. Ethier & Arye L. Hillman, 2017. "The Politics of International Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 6456, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francois, Joseph & Nelson, Douglas & Pelkmans-Balaoing, Annette, 2008. "Endogenous Protection in General Equilibrium: Estimating Political Weights in the EU," CEPR Discussion Papers 6979, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Christis G. Tombazos, 2003. "Unprotective Tariffs, Ineffective Liberalization, and Other Mysteries: An Investigation of the Endogenous Dimensions of Trade Policy Formation in Australia," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 70(1), pages 49-74, July.
    3. kishore gawande & pravin krishna, 2005. "The Political Economy of Trade Policy: Empirical Approaches," International Trade 0503003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Richard E. Baldwin & Frédéric Robert-Nicoud, 2007. "Entry and Asymmetric Lobbying: Why Governments Pick Losers," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(5), pages 1064-1093, September.
    5. Mirabelle Muûls & Dimitra Petropoulou, 2013. "A swing state theory of trade protection in the Electoral College," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(2), pages 705-724, May.
    6. Imai, Susumu & Katayama, Hajime & Krishna, Kala, 2009. "Protection for sale or surge protection?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(6), pages 675-688, August.
    7. Tovar, Patricia, 2009. "The effects of loss aversion on trade policy: Theory and evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 154-167, June.
    8. Yu-Fu Chen & I-Hui Cheng, 2003. "Lobbying for Protection under Uncertainty: A Real Option Approach," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 155, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    9. Ludema, Rodney D. & Mayda, Anna Maria & Yu, Zhi & Yu, Miaojie, 2021. "The political economy of protection in GVCs: Evidence from Chinese micro data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    10. Cole, Matthew T. & Lake, James & Zissimos, Ben, 2021. "Contesting an international trade agreement," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    11. Facchini, Giovanni & Mayda, Anna Maria & Mishra, Prachi, 2011. "Do interest groups affect US immigration policy?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 114-128, September.
    12. Dutt, Pushan & Mitra, Devashish, 2009. "Explaining Agricultural Distortion Patterns : The Roles of Ideology, Inequality, Lobbying and Public Finance," Agricultural Distortions Working Paper Series 50299, World Bank.
    13. Brainard, S. Lael & Verdier, Thierry, 1997. "The political economy of declining industries: Senescent industry collapse revisited," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 221-237, February.
    14. Pokrivcak, Jan, 2007. "Economics and Political Economy of Regional Trade Agreements," Working Papers 7286, TRADEAG - Agricultural Trade Agreements.
    15. Ethier, Wilfred J., 2007. "The theory of trade policy and trade agreements: A critique," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 605-623, September.
    16. Kishore Gawande & Pravin Krishna & Michael J. Robbins, 2006. "Foreign Lobbies and U.S. Trade Policy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 563-571, August.
    17. Baybars Karacaovali & Nuno Limão, 2018. "The clash of liberalizations: Preferential vs. multilateral trade liberalization in the European Union," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Policy Externalities and International Trade Agreements, chapter 14, pages 373-401, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Bradford, Scott, 2003. "Protection and jobs: explaining the structure of trade barriers across industries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 19-39, October.
    19. Anna Maria Mayda & Rodney D. Ludema & Miaojie Yu & Zhi Yu, 2018. "The political economy of protection in GVCs: Evidence from Chinese micro data," Working Papers gueconwpa~18-18-07, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    20. Willmann, Gerald, 2003. "Why Legislators are Protectionists: The Role of Majoritarian Voting in Setting Tariffs," Economics Working Papers 2003-10, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wti:papers:889. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Morven McLean (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wtibech.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.