Endogenous political organization and the value of trade agreements

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mitra, D
• 署名单位: State University System of Florida; Florida International University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/S0022-1996(01)00156-8
• 发表日期: 2002
• 页码: 473-485
• 关键词: Trade policy; lobbying; bargaining; political organization; Trade agreements

摘要

In a bargaining model of endogenous protection, I introduce fixed costs of political-organization that need to be incurred by capitalists prior to actual lobbying. Unlike Maggi and Rodriguez-Clare [J. Pol. Econ. 106(3) (1998) 575] intersectoral capital mobility is disallowed. Nevertheless, I am still able to obtain their main result that a government with low bargaining power vis-a-vis the import-competing lobby precommits to a free-trade agreement. Further, with high fixed organizational costs, the government prefers to stay out of such agreements. Its maximum bargaining power consistent with signing a trade agreement has an inverse-V- shaped relationship with respect to the size of fixed costs. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.