IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/weltar/v157y2021i1d10.1007_s10290-020-00392-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trade exposure and electoral protectionism: evidence from Japanese politician-level data

Author

Listed:
  • Banri Ito

    (Aoyama Gakuin University)

Abstract

This study empirically examines the causal impact of economic shocks of trade on trade policy positions by candidates who run for national elections using politician-level data of Japan during the period from 2009 to 2014. The focus of this research is an examination of how the influence of trade shocks, measured by import competition with China on politicians’ trade policy stance, is related to election pressure. The results revealed that an increase in import exposure deters candidates from supporting trade liberalization, even after considering offset by export exposure. Among other points, this protectionist effect is more pronounced for challengers than for incumbents, and for candidates who run for the Lower House election and are exposed to stronger pressures of elections than those who run for the Upper House election. Taking these findings into account, politicians who face trade shocks tend to appeal to protectionist trade policies as the pressures of elections become stronger.

Suggested Citation

  • Banri Ito, 2021. "Trade exposure and electoral protectionism: evidence from Japanese politician-level data," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 157(1), pages 181-205, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:weltar:v:157:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10290-020-00392-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s10290-020-00392-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10290-020-00392-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10290-020-00392-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. David Autor & David Dorn & Gordon Hanson & Kaveh Majlesi, 2020. "Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(10), pages 3139-3183, October.
    2. Baldwin, Robert E & Magee, Christopher S, 2000. "Is Trade Policy for Sale? Congressional Voting on Recent Trade Bills," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 105(1-2), pages 79-101, October.
    3. Ito, Banri & Mukunoki, Hiroshi & Tomiura, Eiichi & Wakasugi, Ryuhei, 2019. "Trade policy preferences and cross-regional differences: Evidence from individual-level data of Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 99-109.
    4. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson, 2013. "The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2121-2168, October.
    5. Conconi, Paola & Facchini, Giovanni & Zanardi, Maurizio, 2014. "Policymakers' horizon and trade reforms: The protectionist effect of elections," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 102-118.
    6. Wolfgang Dauth & Sebastian Findeisen & Jens Suedekum, 2014. "The Rise Of The East And The Far East: German Labor Markets And Trade Integration," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(6), pages 1643-1675, December.
    7. Mayda, Anna Maria & Rodrik, Dani, 2005. "Why are some people (and countries) more protectionist than others?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1393-1430, August.
    8. Yi Che & Yi Lu & Justin R. Pierce & Peter K. Schott & Zhigang Tao, 2016. "Does Trade Liberalization with China Influence U.S. Elections?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2016-039, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    10. David S. Lee, 2001. "The Electoral Advantage to Incumbency and Voters' Valuation of Politicians' Experience: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Elections to the U.S..," NBER Working Papers 8441, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Kagitani, Koichi & Harimaya, Kozo, 2017. "Electoral motives, constituency systems, ideologies, and a free trade agreement: The case of Japan joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 51-66.
    12. Eugene Beaulieu, 2002. "The Stolper–Samuelson Theorem Faces Congress," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 343-360, May.
    13. William H. Kaempfer & Stephen V. Marks, 1993. "The Expected Effects of Trade Liberalisation: Evidence from US Congressional Action on Fast-Track Authority," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(6), pages 725-740, November.
    14. Rogowski, Ronald, 1987. "Trade and the variety of democratic institutions," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(2), pages 203-223, April.
    15. James M. Devault, 2010. "Cafta, Campaign Contributions, And The Role Of Special Interests," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 282-297, November.
    16. Irwin, Douglas A & Kroszner, Randall S, 1999. "Interests, Institutions, and Ideology in Securing Policy Change: The Republican Conversion to Trade Liberalization after Smoot-Hawley," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 643-673, October.
    17. Jensen, J. Bradford & Quinn, Dennis P. & Weymouth, Stephen, 2017. "Winners and Losers in International Trade: The Effects on US Presidential Voting," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 423-457, July.
    18. Scheve, Kenneth F. & Slaughter, Matthew J., 2001. "What determines individual trade-policy preferences?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 267-292, August.
    19. Ai, Chunrong & Norton, Edward C., 2003. "Interaction terms in logit and probit models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-129, July.
    20. Bruce A., Blonigen, 2011. "Revisiting the evidence on trade policy preferences," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 129-135, September.
    21. Banri Ito, 2015. "Does electoral competition affect politicians’ trade policy preferences? Evidence from Japan," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 165(3), pages 239-261, December.
    22. Eiichi Tomiura & Banri Ito & Hiroshi Mukunoki & Ryuhei Wakasugi, 2016. "Individual Characteristics, Behavioral Biases, and Trade Policy Preferences: Evidence from a Survey in Japan," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 1081-1095, November.
    23. Daniel L. Nielson, 2003. "Supplying Trade Reform: Political Institutions and Liberalization in Middle‐Income Presidential Democracies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(3), pages 470-491, July.
    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. Kagitani, Koichi & Harimaya, Kozo, 2019. "Electoral rules and free trade agreements as a campaign issue: The case of political disputes over the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 126-137.
    2. Kagitani, Koichi & Harimaya, Kozo, 2020. "Does international trade competition influence candidates and voters? The case of Japanese Lower House elections," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    3. ARA Tomohiro & Arpita CHATTERJEE & Arghya GHOSH & ZHANG Hongyong, 2019. "Input Tariff in Oligopoly: Entry, heterogeneity, and demand curvature," Discussion papers 19066, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    4. Sebastián Bustos & Jose Morales‐Arilla, 2024. "Gains from globalization and economic nationalism: AMLO versus NAFTA in the 2006 Mexican elections," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 202-244, March.

    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. Kagitani, Koichi & Harimaya, Kozo, 2017. "Electoral motives, constituency systems, ideologies, and a free trade agreement: The case of Japan joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 51-66.
    2. Ito, Banri & Mukunoki, Hiroshi & Tomiura, Eiichi & Wakasugi, Ryuhei, 2019. "Trade policy preferences and cross-regional differences: Evidence from individual-level data of Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 99-109.
    3. Rodríguez Chatruc, Marisol & Stein, Ernesto & Vlaicu, Razvan, 2021. "How issue framing shapes trade attitudes: Evidence from a multi-country survey experiment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    4. Ito, Banri, 2015. "Does electoral strength affect politician's trade policy preferences? Evidence from Japan," MPRA Paper 62525, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Rodríguez Chatruc, Marisol & Stein, Ernesto H. & Vlaicu, Razvan, 2019. "Trade Attitudes in Latin America: Evidence from a Multi-Country Survey Experiment," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 9603, Inter-American Development Bank.
    6. Blanchard, Emily J. & Bown, Chad P. & Chor, Davin, 2024. "Did Trump’s trade war impact the 2018 election?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    7. Eiji Yamamura & Yoshiro Tsutsui, 2017. "Trade policy preference, childhood sporting experience, and informal school curriculum: Examination from the viewpoint of behavioral economics," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 17-25, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    8. Tomiura, Eiichi & Ito, Banri & Mukunoki, Hiroshi & Wakasugi, Ryuhei, 2021. "Individual characteristics and the demand for reciprocity in trade liberalization: Evidence from a survey in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    9. Christian Dippel & Robert Gold & Stephan Heblich & Rodrigo Pinto, 2017. "Instrumental Variables and Causal Mechanisms: Unpacking the Effect of Trade on Workers and Voters," CESifo Working Paper Series 6816, CESifo.
    10. Wolfgang Lechthaler & Mariya Mileva, 2021. "The Dynamic And Distributional Aspects Of Import Tariffs," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(1), pages 199-241, February.
    11. Barbara Dluhosch, 2018. "Trade, Inequality, and Subjective Well-Being: Getting at the Roots of the Backlash Against Globalization," LIS Working papers 741, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    12. Cevat G. Aksoy & Sergei Guriev & Daniel S. Treisman, 2018. "Globalization, Government Popularity, and the Great Skill Divide," NBER Working Papers 25062, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Lake, James & Nie, Jun, 2023. "The 2020 US Presidential election and Trump’s wars on trade and health insurance," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. Rafael Di Tella & Dani Rodrik, 2020. "Labour Market Shocks and the Demand for Trade Protection: Evidence from Online Surveys," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(628), pages 1008-1030.
    15. Rickard, Stephanie, 2022. "Economic geography, politics, and the world trade regime," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113857, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Koichi Kagitani & Kozo Harimaya, 2020. "Constituency systems, election proximity, special interests and a free trade agreement: the case of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Japan," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 897-922, October.
    17. Che, Yi & Lu, Yi & Pierce, Justin R. & Schott, Peter K. & Tao, Zhigang, 2022. "Did trade liberalization with China influence US elections?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    18. Sebastián Bustos & Jose Morales‐Arilla, 2024. "Gains from globalization and economic nationalism: AMLO versus NAFTA in the 2006 Mexican elections," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 202-244, March.
    19. Ben G. Li & Yi Lu & Pasquale Sgro & Xing Xu, 2020. "Trump, China, and the Republicans," Discussion Papers 2020-26, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    20. James Lake & Jun Nie, 2022. "The 2020 US Presidential Election and Trump's Trade War," CESifo Working Paper Series 9669, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Trade policy; Protectionism; Election; Electoral competition;
    All these keywords.

    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

    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:spr:weltar:v:157:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10290-020-00392-0. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.