We argue in this paper that the second-best nature of trade-policy intervention makes it likely that the issue of time consistency viii be an important consideration in determining both the extent and the efficacy of such intervention in most environments. The point is seen most directly by...

We test empirically for evidence that government tariff-setting behavior depends on the degree of discretion with which policy-makers are endowed. We do this by studying government tariff choices under two distinct environments. One environment is that of tariffs set under the Escape Clause...

We explore in this paper the role of export subsidies when goods arriving from foreign countries are initially of unknown quality to domestic consumers, who learn about their quality only through consumption. If, when confronted with such goods, consumers view price as a signal of quality, a...

We provide an equilibrium analysis of the efficiency properties of bilateral tariff negotiations in a three-country, two-good general equilibrium model of international trade when transfers are not feasible. We consider "weak-rules" settings characterized by two cases: a no-rules case in which...

Over the WTO years, the frequency of disputes and court rulings has trended downwards. Such trends are sometimes interpreted as symptoms of a dispute resolution system in decline. In this paper we propose a theory that can explain these trends as a result of judicial learning; thus according to...

What are the potential benefits from establishing international rules for the conduct of trade policy and how should these rules be designed? These questions are of central importance to the evolution of national trade policies in the post-war era, a period in which an elaborate system of...

How should the issue of domestic labor standards be handled in the GATT/ WTO? This question is part of a broader debate over the appropriate scope of international economic institutions such as the GATT, where member-countries are considering proposals for a new round of n3 negotiations that...

Despite the important roel played by GATT in the world economy, economist have nto developed a unified theoretical framework that interprets and evaluates the principles that form the foundation of GATT. Our purpose here is to propose such a framework. Working within a general equilibrium trade...

Why have governments found reciprocal trade agreements such as GATT to be a more effective means of facilitating trade liberalization than unilateral initiatives? We provide in this paper an analytic framework for the study of reciprocal trade agreements. We use this framework to establish three...

Motivated by the structure of WTO negotiations, we analyze a bargaining environment in which negotiations proceed bilaterally and sequentially under the most-favored-nation (MFN) principle. We identify backward-stealing and forward-manipulation problems that arise when governments bargain under...