Under Section 201 of the 1974 Trade Act, a domestic industry can obtain temporary protection against imports by demonstrating before the International Trade Commission that it has been injured, and that imports have been the"substantial cause" of injury --i.e.,"a cause which is important and not...

In public discussions of policy, evidence that import-competing sectors earn low or falling incomes is often used to argue for protection. This paper rationalizes the apparent effectiveness of this argument in both direct and indirect democracies. In direct democracies, a small degree of voter...

This paper considers a specific factor model with two sectors in which agents are altruistic towards domestic residents. I show that, even if the degree of altruism is small, direct democracy leads to commercial policies that are biased against trade as long as the mobile factor is unbiased in...

This paper considers a specific factor model with two sectors in which agents are altruistic towards domestic residents. I show that, even if the degree of altruism is small, direct democracy leads to commercial policies that are biased against trade as long as the mobile factor is unbiased in...

Under Section 201 of the 1974 Trade Act, a domestic industry can obtain temporary protection against imports by demonstrating before the International Trade Commission that it has been injured, and that imports have been the"substantial cause" of injury --i.e.,"a cause which is important and not...