IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/2839.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Auctioning U.S. Import Quotas, Foreign Response, and Alternative Policies

Author

Listed:
  • Robert C. Feenstra

Abstract

In this paper we quantify the potential revenue available to the U.S. from auctioning import quotas, and the resulting drop in foreign producer surplus relative to free trade. Previous estimates of auction revenue are in the range of $3 7-5.15 billion for 1986 or 1987. Using simulation results from computable partial or general equilibrium models, we find that this revenue gain would be at the expense of a large drop in foreign producer surplus. Ignoring textiles and apparel, the potential auction revenue is $1 3-2.15 billion, and the foreign loss is $0.5-O.7 billion relative to free trade. One alternative to auction quotas is a system of tariff-rate quotas, which are designed to keep supplier countries welfare equal to that in free trade. We calculate that the tariff-rate quotas could raise $067-1.55 billion in revenue for the U.S. While this amount is less than available through auction quotas, it could still fund a significant program of worker adjustment, and would mitigate the foreign response.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert C. Feenstra, 1989. "Auctioning U.S. Import Quotas, Foreign Response, and Alternative Policies," NBER Working Papers 2839, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2839
    Note: ITI IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w2839.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert C. Feenstra & Jagdish N. Bhagwati, 1982. "Tariff Seeking and the Efficient Tariff," NBER Chapters,in: Import Competition and Response, pages 245-262 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Trela, I. & Whalley, J., 1988. "Do Developing Countries Lose From The Mfa?," University of Western Ontario, The Centre for the Study of International Economic Relations Working Papers 8804c, University of Western Ontario, The Centre for the Study of International Economic Relations.
    3. Paul Krugman, 1986. "Strategic Trade Policy and the New International Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262610450, January.
    4. Robert C. Feenstra & Tracy R. Lewis, 1991. "Negotiated Trade Restrictions with Private Political Pressure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(4), pages 1287-1307.
    5. Haynes, Stephen E & Stone, Joe A, 1983. "Specification of Supply Behavior in International Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(4), pages 626-632, November.
    6. Brown, Drusilla K., 1987. "Tariffs, the terms of trade, and national product differentiation," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 503-526.
    7. Goldstein, Morris & Khan, Mohsin S, 1978. "The Supply and Demand for Exports: A Simultaneous Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(2), pages 275-286, May.
    8. repec:wsi:wschap:9789813108448_0025 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Kala Krishna, 1988. "The Case of the Vanishing Revenues: Auction Quotas With Oligopoly," NBER Working Papers 2723, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. David G. Tarr, 2017. "Effects of Restraining Steel Exports from the Republic of Korea and Other Countries to the United States and the European Economic Community," World Scientific Book Chapters,in: Trade Policies for Development and Transition, chapter 25, pages 595-616 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. Gwo-Jiun M. Leu & Andrew Schmitz & Ronald D. Knutson, 1987. "Gains and Losses of Sugar Program Policy Options," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 69(3), pages 591-602.
    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. Kala Krishna, 1990. "Making Altruism Pay in Auction Quotas," NBER Working Papers 3230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. McCorriston, Steve & Sheldon, Ian M., 1992. "Selling Import Quota Licenses: The U.S. Cheese Case," Occasional Papers 233091, Regional Research Project NC-194: Organization and Performance of World Food Systems.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:2839. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: () or (Joanne Lustig). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.