In this paper, the authors examine the economic consequences of existing U.S. restrictions on trade in domestic water transportation (cabotage) services. They briefly trace the history of U.S. policy on cabotage. The authors also use an applied general equilibrium model of the United States to...

Elasticities of substitution among U.S. imports from Mexico, Canada, the rest of the world, and competing domestic production are estimated for twenty-two mining and manufacturing sectors, based on quarterly data for 1980-88. These elasticities will provide a benchmark for computable general...

This paper demonstrates that liberalizing trade in services, while yielding efficiency gains associated with comparative advantage, may yield additional gains for both importing and exporting countries because of an increased division of labor. A model is developed in which producer services...

This paper examines the implications of international returns to scale and globalization of production for commercial policy. Though national returns justify subsidization for small countries, the first-best policy for small countries acting on their own under international returns is free...

We evaluate efficiency considerations underlying the widespread exemption of food from sales and value added taxes and the implications for tax policy. Household and restaurant meals and both constant and increasing returns cases are examined. Higher taxes on food offset the non-taxation of time...

Several of the recently negotiated regional trade agreements contain significantly fewer concessions by the large countries to smaller countries than vice versa. In this paper, we compute post-retaliation Nash tariffs by region under various regional trade arrangements using a calibrated...

Trade and wages literature asks whether trade or technology has been the major factor behind increases in wage inequality in OECD countries since the 1980s. In this literature, little attention has been paid to how goods market responses to trade shocks affect conclusions. Using an Armington...

The current indirect tax system in Canada distorts economic activity in a variety of ways and has been the subject of considerable discussion as part of overall tax reform. In this paper, a general equilibrium model is used to analyze various changes in indirect taxes in Canada, focusing on...