IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/ucscec/qt9gd146fx.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor Market Rigidities and the Political Economy of Trade Protection

Author

Listed:
  • Matschke, Xenia

Abstract

Labor market rigidities are commonly believed to be a major reason for imposing trade impediments. In this paper, I introduce labor market rigidities (such as influential trade unions and high unemployment benefits), that are prevalent in continental European countries, into the well-known Grossman and Helpman (1994) protection for sale model, which has emerged as the leading model in the political economy of trade protection literature. I show that contrary to commonly held views, these labor market rigidities do not necessarily increase equilibrium trade protection. A testable equilibrium trade protection equation is also derived. The findings in this paper are hence particularly relevant for empirical tests of trade policy determinants in economies with more regulated labor markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Matschke, Xenia, 2004. "Labor Market Rigidities and the Political Economy of Trade Protection," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt9gd146fx, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucscec:qt9gd146fx
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9gd146fx.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Susan Rose-Ackerman & Robert Evenson, 1985. "The Political Economy of Agricultural Research and Extension: Grants, Votes, and Reapportionment," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 67(1), pages 1-14.
    3. Xenia Matschke & Shane M. Sherlund, 2006. "Do Labor Issues Matter in the Determination of U.S. Trade Policy? An Empirical Reevaluation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 405-421, March.
    4. MaCurdy, Thomas E & Pencavel, John H, 1986. "Testing between Competing Models of Wage and Employment Determination in Unionized Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 3-39, June.
    5. Rama, Martin & Tabellim, Guido, 1998. "Lobbying by capital and labor over trade and labor market policies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(7), pages 1295-1316, July.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Kiminori Matsuyama, 1990. "Export Subsidies as an Outcome of the Management-Labor Conspiracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(3), pages 803-813.
    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. Matschke, Xenia, 2008. "Costly revenue-raising and the case for favoring import-competing industries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 143-157, January.
    2. Uysal, Pinar & Yotov, Yoto V. & Zylkin, Thomas, 2015. "Firm heterogeneity and trade-induced layoffs: An empirical investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 80-97.
    3. Xenia Matschke & Shane M. Sherlund, 2006. "Do Labor Issues Matter in the Determination of U.S. Trade Policy? An Empirical Reevaluation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 405-421, March.
    4. Goldberg, Pinelopi Koujianou & Pavcnik, Nina, 2005. "Trade, wages, and the political economy of trade protection: evidence from the Colombian trade reforms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 75-105, May.

    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. Matschke, Xenia N., 2004. "Labor Market Rigidities And The Political Economy Of Trade Protection," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt2274x2pn, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    2. Matschke, Xenia N., 2004. "Labor Market Rigidities And The Political Economy Of Trade Protection," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt2274x2pn, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    3. Matschke Xenia, 2010. "Do Labor Market Imperfections Increase Trade Protection? A Theoretical Investigation," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-36, June.
    4. Xenia Matschke & Shane M. Sherlund, 2006. "Do Labor Issues Matter in the Determination of U.S. Trade Policy? An Empirical Reevaluation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 405-421, March.
    5. Per G. Fredriksson & Xenia Matschke & Jenny Minier, 2011. "Trade policy in majoritarian systems: the case of the U.S," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 44(2), pages 607-626, May.
    6. Graham Mallard, 2014. "Static Common Agency And Political Influence: An Evaluative Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 17-35, February.
    7. Paola Conconi & Giovanni Facchini & Max F. Steinhardt & Maurizio Zanardi, 2020. "The political economy of trade and migration: Evidence from the U.S. Congress," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 250-278, July.
    8. Giovanni Facchini & Johannes Van Biesebroeck & Gerald Willmann, 2006. "Protection for sale with imperfect rent capturing," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(3), pages 845-873, August.
    9. Giacomo Ponzetto, 2008. "Asymmetric information and trade policy," Economics Working Papers 1253, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2010.
    10. Gawande, Kishore & Krishna, Pravin & Olarreaga, Marcelo, 2009. "What Governments Maximize and Why: The View from Trade," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 491-532, July.
    11. Uysal, Pinar & Yotov, Yoto V. & Zylkin, Thomas, 2015. "Firm heterogeneity and trade-induced layoffs: An empirical investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 80-97.
    12. Giovanni Facchini & Tommaso Frattini & Cora Signorotto, 2013. "Mind What Your Voters Read: Media Exposure and International Economic Policy Making," Development Working Papers 358, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    13. Mazza, Isidoro & van Winden, Frans, 2008. "An endogenous policy model of hierarchical government," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 133-149, January.
    14. Wei Jiang & Yaqin Wang & Tao Wang, 2023. "The Political Economy of American Exchange Rate Bill Voting: From the Perspective of RMB Appreciation," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 13(1), pages 1-3.
    15. Theo S Eicher & Thomas Osang, 2000. "Politics and Trade Policy: An Empirical Investigation"," Working Papers 0004, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    16. Imai, Susumu & Katayama, Hajime & Krishna, Kala, 2009. "Protection for sale or surge protection?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(6), pages 675-688, August.
    17. Zanardi, Maurizio & Facchini, Giovanni & Conconi, Paola, 2011. "Policymakers? Horizon and Trade Reforms," CEPR Discussion Papers 8251, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Cassing, James H. & Long, Ngo Van, 2021. "Trade in trash: A political economy approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    19. Rigoberto A. Lopez & Xenia Matschke, 2006. "Food Protection for Sale," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 380-391, August.
    20. Barbara Annicchiarico & Enrico Marvasi, 2018. "Protection for Sale with Price Interactions and Incomplete Pass-Through," Working Papers LuissLab 18141, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli.

    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:cdl:ucscec:qt9gd146fx. 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecucsus.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.