IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/inecon/v51y2000i2p287-304.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Import penetration and the politics of trade protection

Author

Listed:
  • Maggi, Giovanni
  • Rodriguez-Clare, Andres

Abstract

In this paper we reconsider a key empirical prediction generated by an important class of political-economy models of trade policy, namely that trade protection should be higher in sectors characterized by lower import penetration (we call this the little support for this prediction. In this paper we argue that the standard prediction depends critically on the assumptions that trade taxes are the only policy instruments and that the government has access to non-distortionary taxation. We analyze a model in which the government can use quotas and VERs in addition to trade taxes and raising public funds may be costly. Under a simple sufficient condition, our model predicts that the protection level increases with import penetration, both in sectors that are protected with tariffs and in sectors that are protected with quantitative restrictions.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Maggi, Giovanni & Rodriguez-Clare, Andres, 2000. "Import penetration and the politics of trade protection," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 287-304, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:51:y:2000:i:2:p:287-304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022-1996(99)00029-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bagwell, K. & Staiger, R.W., 1996. "Reciprocal Trade Liberalization," Working papers 9602, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    2. 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.
    3. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    4. Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "Politics and Trade Policy," Foerder Institute for Economic Research Working Papers 275606, Tel-Aviv University > Foerder Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Kym Anderson, 1980. "The Political Market for Government Assistance to Australian Manufacturing Industries," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 56(153), pages 132-144, June.
    6. Robert C. Feenstra & Tracy R. Lewis, 1991. "Negotiated Trade Restrictions with Private Political Pressure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1287-1307.
    7. Jong-Wha Lee & Phillip Swagel, 2000. "Trade Barriers And Trade Flows Across Countries And Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(3), pages 372-382, August.
    8. 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.
    9. Mayer, Wolfgang & Riezman, Raymond G., 1987. "Endogenous choice of trade policy instruments," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3-4), pages 377-381, November.
    10. Rausser, Gordon C & Irwin, Douglas A, 1988. "The Political Economy of Agricultural Policy Reform," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 15(4), pages 349-366.
    11. J. Michael Finger & Ann Harrison, 1996. "The MFA Paradox: More Protection and More Trade?," NBER Chapters, in: The Political Economy of American Trade Policy, pages 197-260, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Robert C. Feenstra, 1992. "How Costly Is Protectionism?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 159-178, Summer.
    13. Levy, Philip I., 1999. "Lobbying and international cooperation in tariff setting," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 345-370, April.
    14. Hillman, Arye L, 1982. "Declining Industries and Political-Support Protectionist Motives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1180-1187, December.
    15. Cassing, James H. & Hillman, Arye L., 1985. "Political influence motives and the choice between tariffs and quotas," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3-4), pages 279-290, November.
    16. Baldwin, Richard, 1987. "Politically realistic objective functions and trade policy PROFs and tariffs," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 287-290.
    17. Arye L. Hillman & Heinrich W. Ursprung, 2008. "Domestic Politics, Foreign Interests, and International Trade Policy," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Kai A. Konrad & Arye L. Hillman (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 2, pages 113-129, Springer.
    18. Mayer, Wolfgang, 1984. "Endogenous Tariff Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 970-985, December.
    19. Rosendorff, B Peter, 1996. "Voluntary Export Restraints, Antidumping Procedure, and Domestic Politics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 544-561, June.
    20. Borrell, Brent & Maw-Cheng Yang, 1992. "EC Bananarama 1992 : the sequel - the EC Commission proposal," Policy Research Working Paper Series 958, The World Bank.
    21. Anderson, Kym, 1980. "The Political Market for Government Assistance to Australian Manufacturing Industries," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 56(153), pages 132-144, June.
    22. Rodrik, Dani, 1995. "Political economy of trade policy," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 28, pages 1457-1494, Elsevier.
    23. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Rodrik, Dani, 1994. "What does the Political Economy Literature on Trade Policy (Not) Tell Us That We Ought to Know?," CEPR Discussion Papers 1039, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Imai, Susumu & Katayama, Hajime & Krishna, Kala, 2009. "Protection for sale or surge protection?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(6), pages 675-688, August.
    3. Arnaud Costinot, 2009. "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: A "New" Perspective on Protectionism," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(5), pages 1011-1041, September.
    4. Philip I. Levy, 2003. "Non-Tariff Barriers as a Test of Political Economy Theories," Working Papers 852, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    5. 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.
    6. Afontsev Serguey, 2000. "Political Economy of Tariff Protection in Russia: an Empirical Study," EERC Working Paper Series 99-16e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    7. Tavares, Samia, 2006. "The Common External Tariff in a Customs Union: Voting, Logrolling, and National Government Interests," MPRA Paper 959, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Bin, Sheng, 2000. "The Political Economy of Trade Policy in China," Working Papers 10/2000, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Management, Politics & Philosophy.
    9. 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.
    10. David J. Kuenzel, 2023. "Non‐tariff measures: What's tariffs got to do with it?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(1), pages 133-163, February.
    11. Pravin Krishna & Devashish Mitra, 2003. "Reciprocated Unilateralism in Trade Policy: An Interest-Group Approach," NBER Working Papers 9631, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Costenot, Arnaud, 2006. "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: A New Perspective on Protectionism," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt1bt8n04n, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    13. Theo S Eicher & Thomas Osang, 2000. "Politics and Trade Policy: An Empirical Investigation"," Working Papers 0004, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Olper, Alessandro, 2017. "The political economy of trade-related regulatory policy: environment and global value chain," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 5(3), February.
    17. Lopez, Rigoberto A. & Hathie, Ibrahima, 2002. "Is Protection for Sale in U.S. Food Industries?," Research Reports 25182, University of Connecticut, Food Marketing Policy Center.
    18. Grether, Jean-Marie & de Melo, Jaime & Olarreaga, Marcelo, 2001. "Who determines Mexican trade policy?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 343-370, April.
    19. 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.
    20. Tavares, Samia, 2006. "Deeper Integration and Voting on the Common European External Tariff," MPRA Paper 960, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

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

    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:eee:inecon:v:51:y:2000:i:2:p:287-304. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505552 .

    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.