Did US Politicians Expect the China Shock?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bombardini, Matilde; LI, Bingjing; Trebbi, Francesco
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20210140
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 174-209
• 关键词: import competition; trade liberalization; polarization; POLICY; house; legislators; preferences; adjustment; inference; BEHAVIOR

摘要

Information sets, expectations, and preferences of politicians are fundamental, but unobserved determinants of their policy choices. Employing repeated votes in the US House of Representatives on China's normal trade relations (NTR) status during the two decades straddling China's World Trade Organization (WTO) accession, we apply a moment inequality approach designed to deliver consistent estimates under weak informational assumptions on the information sets of members of Congress. This methodology offers a robust way to test hypotheses about what information politicians have at the time of their decision and to estimate the weight that constituents, ideology, and other factors have in policy making and voting. (JEL D72, D78, D83, D84, F14, P33)