IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boc/bocoec/685.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Global Free Trade is in the Core of a Customs Union Game

Author

Listed:
  • Hideo Konishi

    (Boston College)

  • Carsten Kowalczyk

    (Fletcher School, Tufts University)

  • Tomas Sjöström

    (Rutgers University)

Abstract

This paper shows nonemptiness of the core of a customs union game with a status quo equilibrium with tariffs by employing an appropriate notion of the core as in Kowalczyk and Sjöström (1994, Economica). Specifically, we find that if customs unions may have no effects on non-member countries as in Ohyama (1972, Keio Economic Studies) and Kemp and Wan (1976, Journal of International Economics) then a subset of countries forming such a customs union does not block global free trade when accompanied by so-called Grinols transfers (Grinols, 1981, Journal of International Economics).

Suggested Citation

  • Hideo Konishi & Carsten Kowalczyk & Tomas Sjöström, 2008. "Global Free Trade is in the Core of a Customs Union Game," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 685, Boston College Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:685
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp685.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raymond RIEZMAN, 2013. "Customs Unions and the Core," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 3, pages 33-43, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Grandmont, J. M. & McFadden, D., 1972. "A technical note on classical gains from trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 109-125, May.
    3. Kemp, Murray C. & Wan, Henry Jr., 1976. "An elementary proposition concerning the formation of customs unions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 95-97, February.
    4. Kowalczyk, Carsten & Sjostrom, Tomas, 2000. "Trade as transfers, GATT and the core," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 163-169, February.
    5. Murray C. Kemp & Koji Shimomura, 2001. "A Second Elementary Proposition Concerning the Formation of Customs Unions," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 64-69, March.
    6. John Kennan & Raymond Riezman, 2013. "Optimal Tariff Equilibria with Customs Unions," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 5, pages 53-66, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Bond, Eric W. & Syropoulos, Constantinos, 1996. "The size of trading blocs Market power and world welfare effects," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-4), pages 411-437, May.
    8. Grinols, Earl L., 1981. "An extension of the Kemp-Wan theorem on the formation of customs unions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 259-266, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Seidmann, Daniel J., 2009. "Preferential trading arrangements as strategic positioning," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 143-159, September.
    2. Earl Grinols & Peri Silva, 2011. "Rules of origin and gains from trade," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 47(1), pages 159-173, May.
    3. Hideo Konishi & Carsten Kowalczyk & Tomas Sjostrom, 2003. "Free Trade, Customs Unions, and Transfers," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 568, Boston College Department of Economics.
    4. Carsten Kowalczyk & Raymond Riezman, 2013. "Trade Agreements," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Daniel Bernhofen & Rod Falvey & David Greenaway & Udo Kreickemeier (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of International Trade, chapter 13, pages 367-388, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Adib Bagh & Josh Ederington, 2024. "Equity‐efficiency tradeoffs in international bargaining," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(2), pages 782-804, April.
    6. Chang, Winston W. & Chen, Tai-Liang & Saito, Tetsuya, 2021. "Formation of symmetric free-trade blocs, optimal tariff structure, and world welfare," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:bla:reviec:v:17:y:2009:i:si:p:304-309 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Hideo Konishi & Carsten Kowalczyk & Tomas Sjostrom, 2003. "Free Trade, Customs Unions, and Transfers," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 568, Boston College Department of Economics.
    3. Carsten Kowalczyk & Raymond Riezman, 2013. "Trade Agreements," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Daniel Bernhofen & Rod Falvey & David Greenaway & Udo Kreickemeier (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of International Trade, chapter 13, pages 367-388, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Carsten Kowalczyk & Raymond Riezman, 2013. "Free trade: what are the terms-of-trade effects?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 10, pages 149-164, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Winters, L. Alan, 1996. "Regionalism versus Multilateralism," CEPR Discussion Papers 1525, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Sang-Seung, Yi, 1996. "Endogenous formation of customs unions under imperfect competition: open regionalism is good," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 153-177, August.
    7. Carsten Kowalczyk & Tomas Sjostrom, 1993. "Bringing GATT into the Core," NBER Working Papers 4343, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Richard Baldwin, 2008. "Big-Think Regionalism: A Critical Survey," NBER Working Papers 14056, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Kowalczyk, Carsten & Sjostrom, Tomas, 2000. "Trade as transfers, GATT and the core," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 163-169, February.
    10. Inés Macho‐Stadler & Licun Xue, 2007. "Winners and Losers from the Gradual Formation of Trading Blocs," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(296), pages 664-681, November.
    11. Raimondos-Moller, Pascalis & Woodland, Alan D., 2006. "Non-preferential trading clubs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 79-91, January.
    12. Pascalis Raimondos & Alan D. Woodland, 2011. "Reciprocity, World Prices and Welfare," CESifo Working Paper Series 3607, CESifo.
    13. Kyle Bagwell & Robert W. Staiger, 1993. "Multilateral Tarriff Cooperation During the Formation of Regional Free Trade Areas," NBER Working Papers 4364, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Chang, Winston W. & Chen, Tai-Liang & Saito, Tetsuya, 2021. "Formation of symmetric free-trade blocs, optimal tariff structure, and world welfare," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    15. Kyle Bagwell & Chad P. Bown & Robert W. Staiger, 2016. "Is the WTO Passé?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1125-1231, December.
    16. Carsten Kowalczyk & Donald R. Davis, 1998. "Tariff Phase-Outs: Theory and Evidence from GATT and NAFTA," NBER Chapters, in: The Regionalization of the World Economy, pages 227-258, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Eric W. Bond & Raymond G. Riezman & Constantinos Syropoulos, 2013. "A strategic and welfare theoretic analysis of free trade areas," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 8, pages 101-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Bond, Eric W. & Syropoulos, Constantinos & Winters, L. Alan, 2001. "Deepening of regional integration and multilateral trade agreements," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 335-361, April.
    19. Aghion, Philippe & Antras, Pol & Helpman, Elhanan, 2007. "Negotiating free trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 1-30, September.
    20. Lisandro Abrego & Raymond Riezman & John Whalley, 2013. "How often are propositions on the effects of regional trade agreements theoretical curiosa?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 9, pages 129-148, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    21. Saggi, Kamal & Yildiz, Halis Murat, 2005. "Welfare effects of preferential trade agreements under optimal tariffs," MPRA Paper 17562, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    customs unions; game theory; free trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:685. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debocus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.