Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Political Stasis or Protectionist Rut? Policy Mechanisms for Trade Reform in a Democracy

Contents:

Author Info

  • Willmann, Gerald
  • Blanchard, Emily J.

Abstract

This paper analyzes the dynamics of trade policy reform under democracy. In an overlapping generations model, heterogeneous agents may acquire skills when young, thereby determining the skill composition of their cohort. Current and anticipated trade policies influence education decisions, and thus the identity of the median voter. We show that there may exist two political steady states: one protectionist and one liberal. Transition from the former to the latter can be achieved by government announcements, temporary educational subsidies, or (exogenous) tariff liberalization by trading partners, but not, in general, by transfer payments to adversely affected workers. We find additionally that reform is politically feasible only if the proposed liberalization is sufficiently large, suggesting that radical reform may be necessary for escaping a ?protectionist rut.? --

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/22037/1/EWP-2007-21.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics in its series Economics Working Papers with number 2007,21.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:zbw:cauewp:5862

Contact details of provider:
Postal: D-24098 Kiel,Wilhelm-Seelig-Platz 1
Phone: 0431-880 3282
Fax: 0431-880 3150
Web page: http://www.wiso.uni-kiel.de/econ/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: Political Economy; Trade Policy; Skill Acquisition; Politically Stable Policy Paths; Referenda;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

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.:
as in new window
  1. Matsuyama, Kiminori, 1992. "A Simple Model of Sectoral Adjustment," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 375-88, April.
  2. Ngo Van Long & Raymond Riezman & Antoine Soubeyran, 2003. "Trade, Wage Gaps, and Specific Human Capital Accumulation," CESifo Working Paper Series 911, CESifo Group Munich.
  3. Gilles Saint-Paul, 2001. "The Dynamics of Exclusion and Fiscal Conservatism," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 4(2), pages 275-302, April.
  4. Giovanni Maggi & Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, 2007. "A Political-Economy Theory of Trade Agreements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1374-1406, September.
  5. Findlay, Ronald & Kierzkowski, Henryk, 1983. "International Trade and Human Capital: A Simple General Equilibrium Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(6), pages 957-78, December.
  6. Yeaple, Stephen Ross, 2005. "A simple model of firm heterogeneity, international trade, and wages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 1-20, January.
  7. Krusell, Per & Quadrini, Vincenzo & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 1996. "Are consumption taxes really better than income taxes?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 475-503, June.
  8. Eicher, Theo S, 1996. "Interaction between Endogenous Human Capital and Technological Change," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 127-44, January.
  9. Falvey, Rod & Greenaway, David & Silva, Joana, 2010. "Trade liberalisation and human capital adjustment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 230-239, July.
  10. Krusell, P. & Rios-Rull, J.V., 1993. "Vested Interests in a Positive Theory of Stagnation and Growth," Papers 547, Stockholm - International Economic Studies.
  11. Magee, Christopher S.P. & Davidson, Carl & Matusz, Steven J., 2005. "Trade, turnover, and tithing," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 157-176, May.
  12. Davidson, Carl & Martin, Lawrence & Matusz, Steven, 1999. "Trade and search generated unemployment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 271-299, August.
  13. Giovanni Maggi & Andres Rodriguez-Clare, 1998. "The Value of Trade Agreements in the Presence of Political Pressures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 574-601, June.
  14. Francesc Ortega, 2005. "Immigration and the Survival of the Welfare State," 2005 Meeting Papers 71, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  15. Davidson, Carl & Matusz, Steven J. & Nelson, Douglas R., 2007. "Can compensation save free trade?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 167-186, March.
  16. Shubham Chaudhuri & Erhan Artuç & John McLaren, 2003. "Delay and dynamics in labor market adjustment: Simulation results," Discussion Papers 0304-07, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
  17. Krishna, Pravin & Mitra, Devashish, 2008. "Reciprocated unilateralism in trade reforms with majority voting," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1-2), pages 81-93, February.
  18. Glomm, Gerhard & Ravikumar, B., 1996. "Endogenous public policy and multiple equilibria," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 653-662, April.
  19. Franziska Ohnsorge & Daniel Trefler, 2004. "Sorting It Out: International Trade and Protection With Heterogeneous Workers," NBER Working Papers 10959, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  20. John McLaren, 2002. "A Theory Of Insidious Regionalism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 117(2), pages 571-608, May.
  21. Carl Davidson & Steven J. Matusz, 2006. "Long-run Lunacy, Short-run Sanity: a Simple Model of Trade with Labor Market Turnover," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 261-276, 05.
  22. Erhan Artuc, 2009. "Intergenerational Effects of Trade Liberalization," 2009 Meeting Papers 870, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  23. Krishna, Pravin & Mitra, Devashish, 2005. "Reciprocated unilateralism in trade policy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 461-487, March.
  24. Fernandez, Raquel & Rodrik, Dani, 1991. "Resistance to Reform: Status Quo Bias in the Presence of Individual-Specific Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1146-55, December.
  25. Carl Davidson & Steven J. Matusz, 2004. "An Overlapping-generations Model of Escape Clause Protection," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(5), pages 749-768, November.
  26. Willmann, Gerald, 2004. "Pareto gains from trade: a dynamic counterexample," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 199-204, May.
  27. Marco Bassetto, 1999. "Political economy of taxation in an overlapping-generations economy," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 133, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  28. Staiger, Robert W & Tabellini, Guido, 1987. "Discretionary Trade Policy and Excessive Protection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 823-37, December.
  29. Stephen Cameron & Shubham Chaudhuri & John McLaren, 2002. "Mobility costs and the dynamics of labor market adjustment to external shocks: Theory," Discussion Papers 0102-53, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:cauewp:5862

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (ZBW - German National Library of Economics).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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