IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecm/wc2000/1086.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Sources of Protectionist Drift in Representative Democracies

Author

Listed:
  • Didier Laussel

    (GREQAM)

  • Raymond Riezman

    (University of Iowa)

Abstract

We analyze a two country-two goods model of international trade in which citizens in each country differ by their specific factor endowments. The trade policy in each country is set by the politician who has been elected by the citizens in a previous stage. Due to a delegation effect citizens generally favor candidates who are more protectionist than they are. The (multiple) one candidate per country-equilibria exhibit a ''protectionist drift'' owing to this delegation effect and an abstention effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Didier Laussel & Raymond Riezman, 2000. "The Sources of Protectionist Drift in Representative Democracies," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1086, Econometric Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecm:wc2000:1086
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/RePEc/es2000/1086.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Representative democracy and capital taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 53-70, September.
    2. Konstantine Gatsios & Larry Karp, 1991. "Delegation Games in Customs Unions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 391-397.
    3. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 1999. "Centralized versus Decentralized Provision of Local Public Goods: A Political Economy Analysis," NBER Working Papers 7084, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Torsten Persson, 1992. "Politics and economic policy," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 62, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    5. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1998. "Sources of Inefficiency in a Representative Democracy: A Dynamic Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 139-156, March.
    6. John Kennan & Raymond Riezman, 2013. "Do Big Countries Win Tariff Wars?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Raymond Riezman (ed.), International Trade Agreements and Political Economy, chapter 4, pages 45-51, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Chari, V V & Jones, Larry E & Marimon, Ramon, 1997. "The Economics of Split-Ticket Voting in Representative Democracies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 957-976, December.
    8. Martin J. Osborne & Al Slivinski, 1996. "A Model of Political Competition with Citizen-Candidates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 65-96.
    9. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate, 1997. "An Economic Model of Representative Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 85-114.
    10. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 1992. "The Politics of 1992: Fiscal Policy and European Integration," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(4), pages 689-701.
    11. Mayer, Wolfgang, 1984. "Endogenous Tariff Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 970-985, December.
    12. Rodrik, Dani, 1995. "Political economy of trade policy," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 28, pages 1457-1494, Elsevier.
    13. Gatsios, Konstantine & Karp, Larry, 1995. "Delegation in a general equilibrium model of customs unions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 319-333, February.
    14. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1996. "Federal Fiscal Constitutions: Risk Sharing and Moral Hazard," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(3), pages 623-646, May.
    15. G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), 1995. "Handbook of International Economics," Handbook of International Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    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. Facchini, Giovanni & Silva, Peri & Willmann, Gerald, 2013. "The customs union issue: Why do we observe so few of them?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 136-147.
    2. Keisuke Hattori, 2010. "Strategic Voting for Noncooperative Environmental Policies in Open Economies," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 46(4), pages 459-474, August.
    3. Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2009. "On the Strategic Use of Representative Democracy in International Agreements," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(2), pages 281-296, April.
    4. Roelfsema, Hein, 2007. "Strategic delegation of environmental policy making," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 270-275, March.

    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. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    2. Redoano, Michela & Scharf, Kimberly A., 2004. "The political economy of policy centralization: direct versus representative democracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 799-817, March.
    3. Willmann, Gerald, 2003. "Why Legislators are Protectionists: The Role of Majoritarian Voting in Setting Tariffs," Economics Working Papers 2003-10, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    4. Hikaru Ogawa & Taiki Susa, 2017. "Strategic delegation in asymmetric tax competition," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 237-251, November.
    5. R. Emre Aytimur & Aristotelis Boukouras & Robert Schwager, 2016. "The citizen‐candidate model with imperfect policy control: Strategic delegation and polarization," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(3), pages 997-1015, August.
    6. Lisa Grazzini & Alessandro Petretto, 2015. "Federalism with Bicameralism," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 16(2), pages 138-160, May.
    7. Nicola Persico & Alessandro Lizzeri, 2001. "The Provision of Public Goods under Alternative Electoral Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 225-239, March.
    8. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 2003. "Centralized versus decentralized provision of local public goods: a political economy approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(12), pages 2611-2637, December.
    9. Fabio Fiorillo & Agnese Sacchi, 2012. "The Political Economy of the Standard Level of Services: The Role of Income Distribution," CESifo Working Paper Series 3696, CESifo.
    10. Antonio Merlo, 2005. "Whither Political Economy? Theories, Facts and Issues," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Dec 2005.
    11. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Sajal Lahiri & Howard J. Wall, 2009. "Cross-border lobbying in preferential trading agreements: implications for external tariffs," Working Papers 2009-041, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    12. Fritz Breuss, 2004. "WTO Dispute Settlement: An Economic Analysis of Four EU–US Mini Trade Wars—A Survey," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 275-315, December.
    13. Rupayan Pal & Ajay Sharma, 2011. "Political competition and leadership in tax competition," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2011-024, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    14. Lars P. Feld & Justina A.V. Fischer & Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2010. "The Effect Of Direct Democracy On Income Redistribution: Evidence For Switzerland," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(4), pages 817-840, October.
    15. R. Emre Aytimur & Aristotelis Boukouras & Robert Schwager, 2012. "The Citizen-Candidate Model with Imperfect Policy Control," CESifo Working Paper Series 3900, CESifo.
    16. Adam, Antonis & Kammas, Pantelis & Lapatinas, Athanasios, 2015. "Income inequality and the tax structure: Evidence from developed and developing countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 138-154.
    17. Harry Huizinga & Søren Bo Nielsen, "undated". "The Political Economy of Capital Income and Profit Taxation in a Small Open Economy," EPRU Working Paper Series 97-01, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    18. Yukihiro Nishimura & Kimiko Terai, 2021. "Electoral Commitment in Asymmetric Tax-competition Models," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 20-21, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    19. Hamlin, Alan & Jennings, Colin, 2007. "Leadership and conflict," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 49-68, September.
    20. Rupayan Pal & Ajay Sharma, 2019. "Preferences over Public Good, Political Delegation, and Leadership in Tax Competition," Public Finance Review, , vol. 47(4), pages 718-746, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

    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:ecm:wc2000:1086. 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/essssea.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.