Trade and the political economy of redistribution

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Vannoorenberghe, G.; Janeba, E.
• 署名单位: Universite Catholique Louvain; Tilburg University; University of Mannheim
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2015.09.008
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 233-244
• 关键词: International trade; redistribution; political economy; factor mobility

摘要

This paper shows how international trade affects the support for policies which redistribute income between workers across sectors, and how the existence of such policies changes the support for trade liberalization. Workers, who are imperfectly mobile across sectors, vote on whether to subsidize ailing sectors, thereby redistributing income but also distorting the labor allocation. We present three main findings. First, redistributive policies are more likely to arise in a small open than in a closed economy for a broad range of parameters. Second, if a redistributive policy is adopted in both situations, income differences across sectors tend to be lower in the open economy. Third, the possibility to redistribute income across sectors raises the political support for trade liberalization in the first place. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.