The role of importers and exporters in the determination of the U.S. tariff preferences granted to Latin America

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Silva, Peri
• 署名单位: University of North Dakota Grand Forks
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2010.01.014
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 207-219
• 关键词: trade; political economy; Latin America; United States

摘要

This paper investigates the role played by domestic importers and foreign exporters in improving preferential access to the domestic market. To this end, the framework used in this paper extends the protection for sale analysis to explicitly model the role of domestic importers and foreign exporters in the determination of preferential trade treatment. The predictions of the model are tested using data on preferential trade between the United States and Latin American countries. The results suggest that Latin American exporters and US importers' lobbying efforts have a significant and important role in determining the extent of preferential access granted by the United States. More interestingly, these findings also show that U.S. importers capture a very substantial share of the rents generated by tariff preferences. These results therefore shed a pessimistic view on preferential trade schemes as a reliable source of gains for developing countries. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.