"We consider the design and implementation of international trade agreements when: (i) negotiations are undertaken and commitments made in the presence of uncertainty about future political pressures; (ii) governments possess private information about political pressures at the time that the ag...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben

Hauptverfasser:	Bagwell, Kyle 1961- (VerfasserIn), Staiger, Robert W. (VerfasserIn)
Format:	Buch
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2004
Schriftenreihe:	National Bureau of Economic Research <Cambridge, Mass.>: NBER working paper series 10987
Schlagworte:	General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Organization) World Trade Organization Politik Commercial treaties > Political aspects
Online-Zugang:	Volltext
Zusammenfassung:	"We consider the design and implementation of international trade agreements when: (i) negotiations are undertaken and commitments made in the presence of uncertainty about future political pressures; (ii) governments possess private information about political pressures at the time that the agreement is actually implemented; and (iii) negotiated commitments can be implemented only if they are self-enforcing. We thus consider the design of self-enforcing trade agreements among governments that acquire private information over time. In this context, we provide equilibrium interpretations of GATT/WTO negotiations regarding upper bounds on applied tariffs and GATT/WTO escape clauses. We find that governments achieve greater welfare when they negotiate the optimal upper bound on tariffs rather than precise tariff levels; furthermore, when governments negotiate the optimal upper bound on tariffs, the observed applied tariffs often fall strictly below the bound. Our analysis also provides a novel interpretation of a feature of the WTO Safeguard Agreement, under which escape clause actions cannot be re-imposed in the same industry for a time period equal to the duration of the most recent escape clause action. We find that a dynamic usage constraint of this kind can raise the expected welfare of negotiating governments"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Beschreibung:	39, 4, [6] S. graph. Darst.