Contesting an international trade agreement

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cole, Matthew T.; Lake, James; Zissimos, Ben
• 署名单位: California State University System; California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo; Southern Methodist University; University of Exeter
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2020.103410
• 发表日期: 2021
• 关键词: Contest; International agreement; lobbying; TARIFFS; Trade agreement

摘要

We develop a new theoretical political economy framework called a 'parallel contest' that emphasizes the political fight over trade agreement (TA) ratification within countries. TA ratification is inherently uncertain in each country because anti- and pro-trade interests contest each other to influence their own government's ratification decision. As in the terms-of-trade theory of TAs, the TA removes terms-of-trade externalities created by unilateral tariffs. But, a TA also creates new terms-of-trade and local-price externalities in our framework due to endogenous ratification uncertainty combined with the requirement that each country ratify the TA for it to go ahead. Thus, reciprocal TA liberalization fails to eliminate all terms-of-trade externalities. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.