IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/1261.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A political - economy analysis of free trade areas and customs unions

Author

Listed:
  • Panagariya, Arvind
  • Findlay, Ronald
  • DEC

Abstract

The authors analyze the welfare effects of regional integration in a model of endogenous protection. They show that introducing preferential trading leads to an increase in protection against countries outside the preferential trading area. Moreover, the important Meade result of preferential trading breaks down in the presence of endogenous protection. According to the Meade result, if excess demands exhibit net substitutability, the introduction of preferential trading is welfare-improving. In the presence of endogenous protection, because preferential trading is accompanied by increased protection against nonpartners, its effect on welfare is ambiguous. The authors also compare free trade areas and customs unions. They provide the first formal treatment of the argument that a customs union is a more effective instrument for diluting the power of interest groups than is a free trade area. Under a customs union, the tariff available to one country becomes available to all countries in the union. This introduces a free-rider problem in lobbying and all lobbying takes place in one country. The lobby chooses a lower (common) external tariff under a customs unions than under a free trade area. This means that welfare in the country where lobbying takes place is higher under a customs union than under a free trade area, although the same may not hold true for the other country. The level of the common external tariff declines as the number of members in the union increases. Therefore, the larger the number of partners in a customs union, the more likely it will improve the welfare of member countries. But, because of the free-rider problem, lobbies are likely to resist the enlargement of the customs union.

Suggested Citation

  • Panagariya, Arvind & Findlay, Ronald & DEC, 1994. "A political - economy analysis of free trade areas and customs unions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1261, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1261
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1994/03/01/000009265_3961006015730/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Heinrich W. Ursprung, 1990. "Public Goods, Rent Dissipation, And Candidate Competition," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(2), pages 115-132, July.
    2. Brock, William A & Magee, Stephen P, 1978. "The Economics of Special Interest Politics: The Case of the Tariff," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 246-250, May.
    3. Jaime De Melo & Arvind Panagariya & Dani Rodrik, 2015. "The New Regionalism: A Country Perspective," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Developing Countries in the World Economy, chapter 14, pages 323-357, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "The Politics of Free-Trade Agreements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 667-690, September.
    5. Hillman, Arye L. & Van Long, Ngo & Soubeyran, Antoine, 2001. "Protection, lobbying, and market structure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 383-409, August.
    6. Rodrik, Dani, 1986. "Tariffs, subsidies, and welfare with endogenous policy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3-4), pages 285-299, November.
    7. Raymond RIEZMAN, 2013. "A 3 × 3 Model of Customs Unions," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 1, pages 7-20, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Bhagwati, Jagdish N & Srinivasan, T N, 1980. "Revenue Seeking: A Generalization of the Theory of Tariffs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(6), pages 1069-1087, December.
    9. Krueger, Anne O, 1974. "The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 291-303, June.
    10. Paul Krugman, 1989. "Is Bilateralism Bad?," NBER Working Papers 2972, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Lloyd, P. J., 1982. "3 x 3 theory of customs unions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1-2), pages 41-63, February.
    12. 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. Panagariya, Arvind & Rodrik, Dani, 1993. "Political-Economy Arguments for a Uniform Tariff," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 34(3), pages 685-703, August.
    2. Ronald Findlay & Stanislaw Wellisz, 1986. "Tariffs, quotas and domestic-content protection: some political economy considerations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 221-242, January.
    3. Aaron Tornell, 1989. "Inconsistencia dinámica de los programas proteccionistas," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 4(1), pages 61-82.
    4. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Sajal Lahiri & Howard J. Wall, 2009. "Cross-border lobbying in preferential trading agreements: implications for external tariffs," Working Papers 2009-041, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    5. Eaton, Jonathan, 1989. "Monopoly Wealth and International Debt," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(1), pages 33-48, February.
    6. Jay S. Coggins, 1995. "Rent Dissipation And The Social Cost Of Price Policy," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 147-166, July.
    7. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Sajal Lahiri & Suryadipta Roy, 2008. "Enlargement and common external tariff in a political-economic model of customs union," Working Papers 2008-022, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    8. Gordon C. Rausser, 1982. "Political Economic Markets: PERTs and PESTs in Food and Agriculture," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 64(5), pages 821-833.
    9. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Sajal Lahiri & Suryadipta Roy, 2011. "Political Asymmetry And Common External Tariffs In A Customs Union," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 88-106, March.
    10. de Melo, Jaime & Montenegro, Claudio & Panagariya, Arvind, 1992. "Regional integration, old and new," Policy Research Working Paper Series 985, The World Bank.
    11. Arye L. Hillman & Ngo Van Long, 2017. "Rent Seeking: The Social Cost of Contestable Benefits," CESifo Working Paper Series 6462, CESifo.
    12. Tyler Cowen & Amihai Glazer & Henry McMillan, 1994. "Rent Seeking Can Promote The Provision Of Public Goods," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 6(2), pages 131-145, July.
    13. Arvind Panagariya, 2003. "Preferential Trading and Welfare: The Small-Union Case Revisited," International Trade 0308009, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Robert E. Baldwin, 1986. "Rent-Seeking and Trade Policy: An Industry Approach," International Economic Association Series, in: Bela Balassa & Herbert Giersch (ed.), Economic Incentives, chapter 16, pages 429-453, Palgrave Macmillan.
    15. K.P. Kannan & N. Vijayamohanan Pillai, 2001. "The political economy of public utilities: A study of the power sector," Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum Working Papers 316, Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum, India.
    16. Felipe Larraín & José Tavares, 2004. "Does Foreign Direct Investment Decrease Corruption?," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 41(123), pages 217-230.
    17. Larrain B., Felipe & Tavares, José, 2007. "Can Openness Deter Corruption? The Role of Foreign Direct Investment," CEPR Discussion Papers 6488, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Arye Hillman & Ngo Van Long, 2017. "The social cost of contestable benefits," CIRANO Working Papers 2017s-11, CIRANO.
    19. Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu & Lahiri, Sajal, 2017. "Lobbying for a Common External Tariff from inside and out," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 98-105.
    20. Jagdish Bhagwati, 1989. "Is free trade passé after all?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 125(1), pages 17-44, March.

    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:wbk:wbrwps:1261. 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: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    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.