An Elementary Proposition Concerning Parallel Imports

This paper demonstrates that, when countries individually choose whether or not to prohibit parallel imports, a global Nash equilibrium involves the permitting of parallel importing into all relevant foreign markets i.e. global uniform pricing. This result is sensitive in a straightforward way to the tariff-setting powers of countries and to the specification of a government’s objective function (i.e. political economy considerations). We also show that when countries can prevent “parallel exports” then any Nash equilibrium involves global price discrimination.