Welfare Analysis of a Prohibitive NTM in a Society with a Proportion of Concerned Consumers

The aim of this contribution is to provide a cost-benefit analysis in a partial equilibrium framework to investigate the welfare consequences of a non-tariff measure (NTM). The important issue of the analysis is having two groups of indifferent and concerned consumers. The ultimate aim of the paper is to investigate whether or not the paternalistic behavior of government is in line with the willingness of the consumers for demand. The existence of information about the origin of goods is the leading issue of the analysis that provides two different scenarios. The model is calibrated with data on consumption of shrimps. The findings suggest that in the existence of such information, NTM policy has the lowest international losses and highest domestic gains. The policy implication of these results suggests that governments should try to increase the information in the market when they are following good faith for imposition of NTM.