A rationale for cooperation in trade negotiations is the internalization of terms-of-trade externalities. With the help of a simple theoretical framework we show that the textbook prediction that non-cooperative tariffs are positively correlated to the importer's market power is reversed when...

This Paper assesses the foreign lobbying forces behind the tariff preferences that the United States grants to Latin American countries. The basic framework is one developed by Grossman and Helpman (1994) that is extended to explain the relationship between foreign lobbying and tariff...

The objective of this paper is to provide indicators of trade restrictiveness that include both measures of tariff and non-tariff barriers for 91 developing and developed countries. For each country, we estimate three trade restrictiveness indices. The first one captures the extent to which...

To study the effects of tariffs on GDP one needs import demand elasticities at the tariff line level that are consistent with GDP maximization. These do not exist. We modify Kohli’s (1991) GDP function approach to estimate demand elasticities for 4625 imported goods in 117 countries. Following...

The objective of this paper is to estimate the potential pro-poor bias in the existing structure of protection in six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (i.e., whether it redistributes income from rich to poor households). We also explore the extent to which the barriers faced by SSA...

The number of preferential trade agreements has greatly increased over the past two decades, yet most existing arrangements take the form of free trade areas, and less than ten percent can be considered to be fully fledged customs unions. This paper develops a political economy model of trade...

Although average tariffs in Quad markets are very low, tariff peaks and tariff escalation have a disproportional effect on exports from least developed countries (LDCs). Tariff peak products tend to be heavily concentrated in agriculture and food products and in labour-intensive sectors such as...

Exporters’ performance in a particular market may affect their future exports to the rest of the world. Importers may base their future transaction decisions upon the information revealed by exporters’ past performance in other countries. Similarly, exporters acquire valuable information on...

This paper extends the influence-driven model of trade policy determination to include general equilibrium effects on the supply side resulting from labour-market interaction and intermediate goods. The model’s predictions for the structure of protection are related to underlying taste and...

Using an extension of the influence-driven lobbying approach developed by Grossman and Helpman, we study the impact of regional integration arrangements (RIAs) on trade policy towards non-members in a three-good, three-country model. We explore under what conditions the formation of an RIA...