Chapter 3 Trade War and its Welfare Consequences: A Micro-theoretic Introspection

The chapter attempts to develop a micro-theoretic model to explain the genesis of trade war in light of the behavioral interdependence of two countries connected through international trade and, thereof, it analyses its welfare implication with respect to the countries at feud. In this regard, it is important to mention that the evolution of trade war herein has been articulated in terms of the retaliation of one country as reaction to the one time-tariff imposition by the other. The fundamental takeaways are twofold. First, how evolution of tariff war can be articulated in light two-stage game governments are coming to decide on tariff policy a priori, followed by second-stage featuring firms being decisive on the production level and then the games repeats where governments again come up to introspects if the a priori tariff rates are compatible with welfare optimization to be followed up by firms. Second, the nature of the ultimate fallout of the tariff retaliation will depend crucially on how welfare function of each country is paced with the country’s tariff policy.