This paper examines the effect of political and economic asymmetries in the formation of common external tariffs (CETs) in a customs union (CU). We do so by introducing possible cross-border lobbying and by endogenizing tariff formation in a political economic model for the determination of...

We present a three-nation model, where two of the nations are members of a Customs Union (CU) and maintain a common external tariff (CET) on the third (non-member) nation. The producing lobby is assumed to be union-wide and lobbies both governments to influence the CET. The CET is determined...

This paper provides new estimates of the effects of corruption and poor institutions on trade protection. It exploits data on several measures of trade protection including import duty, international trade taxes, and the trade-GDP ratio. The paper complements the literature on the relationship...