Are retaliatiory tariffs politically targeted and, if so, are they effective? Do countries designing a retaliation response face a trade-off between maximizing political targeting and mitigating domestic economic harm? We use the recent trade escalation between the US, China, the European Union...

The United States introduced Federal Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) as part of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act to dampen the adverse impact of increased trade on workers. Applications to receive TAA require approval from the Department of Labor. Guided by the technical criteria used by the U.S....

In this paper we examine the empirical relevance of three prominent endogenous protection models. Is protection for sale, or do altruistic policy makers worry about political support? We find strong evidence that protection is indeed for sale. The important new result is, however, that not only...

We study how the opportunity to trade in trash might influence the equilibrium outcome when the tax on the externality is determined by a political economy process. In our model, individuals have heterogeneous preferences for environmental quality, and there is a leakage when funds are...

We find that Republican candidates lost support in the 2018 congressional election in counties more exposed to trade retaliation, but saw no commensurate electoral gains from US tariff protection. The electoral losses were driven by retaliatory tariffs on agricultural products, and were only...

We analyze a two country-two good model of international trade in which citizens in each country differ by their specific factor endowments. The trade policy in each country is set by the politician who has been elected by the citizens in a previous stage. Due to a delegation effect citizens...

We use an empirical gravity equation approach to study how nonreciprocal trade preferences (NRTPs), enacted mainly through the Generalized System of Preferences, affect the exports of the beneficiary nations. In line with existing studies, the average trade effect stemming from nonreciprocal...

How does dismantling deep integration affect international trade? This paper provides new evidence on the consequences of disintegration by estimating the impact of Brexit on goods trade by UK firms. The UK’s exit from the EU’s single market and customs union in January 2021 led to an...

This paper studies the role of dataset choices for trade policy estimates in structural gravity models. Using twelve publicly available data sources and applying alternative and commonly used dataset restrictions, we obtain 586 estimates for the EU membership trade effects from a standard...

A common narrative is that COVID-19 cost Trump re-election. We do not find supporting evidence; if anything, the pandemic helped Trump. However, we find substantial evidence that voters abandoned Trump in counties with large increases in health insurance coverage since the Affordable Care Act,...