IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/959.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Common External Tariff in a Customs Union: Voting, Logrolling, and National Government Interests

Author

Listed:
  • Tavares, Samia

Abstract

Missing from the analysis of customs unions has been a consideration of collective decisionmaking by countries regarding the union’s common trade policy. In the case of the common European external tariff, how governments voted was not public information. This paper uses a unique dataset to derive member states’ tariff preferences, which are then used to establish the decision rule before 1987, when individual governments had veto power. Results indicate a principle of unanimity, as well as the presence of logrolling. The political equilibrium for the common external tariff is also illustrated to have shifted as a result of union enlargements.

Suggested Citation

  • Tavares, Samia, 2006. "The Common External Tariff in a Customs Union: Voting, Logrolling, and National Government Interests," MPRA Paper 959, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:959
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/959/1/MPRA_paper_959.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G, 1981. "Several Tests for Model Specification in the Presence of Alternative Hypotheses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(3), pages 781-793, May.
    2. Trefler, Daniel, 1993. "Trade Liberalization and the Theory of Endogenous Protection: An Econometric Study of U.S. Import Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(1), pages 138-160, February.
    3. L. Wade, 1988. "Review," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 99-100, July.
    4. Jong-Wha Lee & Phillip Swagel, 2000. "Trade Barriers And Trade Flows Across Countries And Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(3), pages 372-382, August.
    5. Giovanni Maggi & Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, 1999. "Protection for Sale: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1135-1155, December.
    6. Pecorino, Paul, 1998. "Is There a Free-Rider Problem in Lobbying? Endogenous Tariffs, Trigger Strategies, and the Number of Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 652-660, June.
    7. Kishore Gawande & Usree Bandyopadhyay, 2000. "Is Protection for Sale? Evidence on the Grossman-Helpman Theory of Endogenous Protection," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(1), pages 139-152, February.
    8. Hillman, Arye L, 1982. "Declining Industries and Political-Support Protectionist Motives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1180-1187, December.
    9. Hillman, Arye L. & Van Long, Ngo & Soubeyran, Antoine, 2001. "Protection, lobbying, and market structure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 383-409, August.
    10. Widgren, Mika, 1994. "Voting power in the EC decision making and the consequences of two different enlargements," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 1153-1170, May.
    11. Arye L. Hillman & Heinrich W. Ursprung, 2008. "Domestic Politics, Foreign Interests, and International Trade Policy," Springer Books, in: Roger D. Congleton & Kai A. Konrad & Arye L. Hillman (ed.), 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 2, pages 113-129, Springer.
    12. Mayer, Wolfgang, 1984. "Endogenous Tariff Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 970-985, December.
    13. Olarreaga, Marcelo & Soloaga, Isidro & Winters, Alan, 1999. "What's behind MERCOSUR's common external tariff?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2231, The World Bank.
    14. Romer, Thomas & Rosenthal, Howard, 1982. "Median Voters or Budget Maximizers: Evidence from School Expenditure Referenda," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(4), pages 556-578, October.
    15. 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.
    16. Ronald Findlay & Stanislaw Wellisz, 1982. "Endogenous Tariffs, the Political Economy of Trade Restrictions, and Welfare," NBER Chapters, in: Import Competition and Response, pages 223-244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Tavares, Samia, 2006. "Deeper Integration and Voting on the Common European External Tariff," MPRA Paper 960, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Kishore Gawande & Pravin Krishna & Michael J. Robbins, 2006. "Foreign Lobbies and U.S. Trade Policy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 563-571, August.
    3. Maggi, Giovanni & Rodriguez-Clare, Andres, 2000. "Import penetration and the politics of trade protection," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 287-304, August.
    4. kishore gawande & pravin krishna, 2005. "The Political Economy of Trade Policy: Empirical Approaches," International Trade 0503003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Bombardini, Matilde, 2008. "Firm heterogeneity and lobby participation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 329-348, July.
    6. Samia Tavares, 2006. "The political economy of the European customs classification," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(1), pages 107-130, October.
    7. Imai, Susumu & Katayama, Hajime & Krishna, Kala, 2009. "Protection for sale or surge protection?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(6), pages 675-688, August.
    8. Richard E. Baldwin & Frédéric Robert-Nicoud, 2007. "Entry and Asymmetric Lobbying: Why Governments Pick Losers," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(5), pages 1064-1093, September.
    9. Chang, Pao-Li, 2005. "Protection for sale under monopolistic competition," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 509-526, July.
    10. Olper, Alessandro, 2017. "The political economy of trade-related regulatory policy: environment and global value chain," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 5(3), February.
    11. Francois, Joseph & Nelson, Douglas R., 2014. "Political support for trade policy in the European Union," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 243-253.
    12. Richard Damania & Per Fredriksson & Thomas Osang, 2004. "Collusion, Collective Action and Protection: Theory and Evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 279-308, February.
    13. Enrico Marvasi, 2013. "Protection for Sale, Monopolistic Competition and Variable Markups," Working Papers - Economics wp2013_11.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    14. Giovanni Maggi & Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, 1999. "Protection for Sale: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1135-1155, December.
    15. Theo Eicher & Thomas Osang, 2002. "Protection for Sale: An Empirical Investigation: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1702-1710, December.
    16. Pushan Dutt & Devashish Mitra, 2016. "Endogenous trade policy through majority voting: an empirical investigation," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: The Political Economy of Trade Policy Theory, Evidence and Applications, chapter 4, pages 67-93, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Theo S Eicher & Thomas Osang, 2000. "Politics and Trade Policy: An Empirical Investigation"," Working Papers 0004, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    18. Tovar, Patricia, 2009. "The effects of loss aversion on trade policy: Theory and evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 154-167, June.
    19. Yasar, Mahmut, 2013. "Political Influence of Exporting and Import-Competing Firms: Evidence from Eastern European and Central Asian Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 154-168.
    20. Wilfred J. Ethier & Arye L. Hillman, 2017. "The Politics of International Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 6456, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Collective decisions; tariff preferences; political economy; European Community; decisive voter;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • 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:pra:mprapa:959. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.