IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/8005.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade policy and redistribution when preferences are non-homothetic

Author

Listed:
  • Do,Quy-Toan
  • Levchenko,Andrei A.

Abstract

This paper compares redistribution through trade restrictions versus domestic lump-sum transfers. When preferences are non-homothetic, even domestic lump-sum transfers affect relative prices. Thus, contrary to the conventional wisdom, domestic lump-sum transfers are not necessarily superior to distortionary trade policy. The paper develops this argument in the context of the food export bans imposed by many developing countries in the late 2000s.

Suggested Citation

  • Do,Quy-Toan & Levchenko,Andrei A., 2017. "Trade policy and redistribution when preferences are non-homothetic," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8005, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:8005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/122941489496628184/pdf/WPS8005.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glazer, Amihai & Ranjan, Priya, 2007. "Trade protection to reduce redistribution," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 790-805, September.
    2. Pablo Fajgelbaum & Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 2011. "Income Distribution, Product Quality, and International Trade," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(4), pages 721-765.
    3. Everett E. Hagen, 1958. "An Economic Justification of Protectionism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 72(4), pages 496-514.
    4. Pablo D. Fajgelbaum & Amit K. Khandelwal, 2016. "Measuring the Unequal Gains from Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1113-1180.
    5. Porto, Guido G., 2006. "Using survey data to assess the distributional effects of trade policy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 140-160, September.
    6. Krueger, Anne O, 1974. "The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 291-303, June.
    7. Paolo Epifani & Gino Gancia, 2009. "Openness, Government Size and the Terms of Trade," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(2), pages 629-668.
    8. Rinku Murgai & Martin Ravallion & Dominique van de Walle, 2016. "Is Workfare Cost-effective against Poverty in a Poor Labor-Surplus Economy?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 30(3), pages 413-445.
    9. Pablo D. Fajgelbaum, 2011. "Income Distribution, Product Quality and International Trade," 2011 Meeting Papers 415, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    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. Santiago Camara, 2022. "TANK meets Diaz-Alejandro: Household heterogeneity, non-homothetic preferences & policy design," Papers 2201.02916, arXiv.org.

    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. Benjamin Faber & Thibault Fally, 2022. "Firm Heterogeneity in Consumption Baskets: Evidence from Home and Store Scanner Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(3), pages 1420-1459.
    2. Muendler, Marc-Andreas, 2017. "Trade, technology, and prosperity: An account of evidence from a labor-market perspective," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2017-15, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    3. Colicev, Anatoli & Hoste, Joris & Konings, Jozef, 2022. "The Impact of a Large Depreciation on the Cost of Living of Rich and Poor Consumers," CEPR Discussion Papers 16869, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Javier Cravino & Andrei A. Levchenko, 2017. "The Distributional Consequences of Large Devaluations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(11), pages 3477-3509, November.
    5. Hottman, Colin J. & Monarch, Ryan, 2020. "A matter of taste: Estimating import price inflation across U.S. income groups," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    6. Ardelean, Adina & Lugovskyy, Volodymyr, 2019. "Tariffs, product quality, and the relative prices of durables: Evidence from 1989 to 2009 U.S. microdata," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 54-75.
    7. Wang, Bei & Qian, Xuefeng & Li, Ying & Cao, Jia, 2024. "Pro-poor consumption effects of trade liberalization: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    8. Taiji Furusawa & Hideo Konishi & Duong Lam Anh Tran, 2020. "International Trade and Income Inequality," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(3), pages 993-1026, July.
    9. Coşar, A. Kerem & Grieco, Paul L.E. & Li, Shengyu & Tintelnot, Felix, 2018. "What drives home market advantage?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 135-150.
    10. Silvia Fabiani & Alberto Felettigh & Alfonso Rosolia, 2023. "Foreign Value Added along the Consumption Distribution," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 9(1), pages 35-60, March.
    11. Pablo D. Fajgelbaum & Amit K. Khandelwal, 2016. "Measuring the Unequal Gains from Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(3), pages 1113-1180.
    12. Kirill Borusyak & Xavier Jaravel, 2018. "The Distributional Effects of Trade: Theory and Evidence from the United States," 2018 Meeting Papers 284, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Dorothee Hillrichs & Gonzague Vannoorenberghe, 2021. "Recovering Within-Country Inequality From Trade Data," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2021014, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    14. Rudolfs Bems & Julian di Giovanni, 2016. "Income-Induced Expenditure Switching," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(12), pages 3898-3931, December.
    15. Flach, Lisandra & Unger, Florian, 2022. "Quality and gravity in international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    16. Eddy Bekkers & Joseph Francois & Miriam Manchin, 2016. "Trade costs, quality and the skill premium," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(3), pages 1153-1178, August.
    17. repec:wsr:ecbook:2015:i:vi-004 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Bo Gao & Bin Qiu, 2023. "Income distribution and unequal gains from trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 236-255, January.
    19. Artuc, Erhan & Porto, Guido & Rijkers, Bob, 2019. "Trading off the income gains and the inequality costs of trade policy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-45.
    20. Renaud Bourlès & Michael T. Dorsch & Paul Maarek, 2019. "Income Taxation and the Diversity of Consumer Goods: A Political Economy Approach," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(3), pages 960-993, July.
    21. Dorothee Hillrichs, 2023. "The global geography of income and export patterns," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2023001, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality; International Trade and Trade Rules;

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • O24 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Trade Policy; Factor Movement; Foreign Exchange Policy
    • Q17 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agriculture in International Trade

    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:wbk:wbrwps:8005. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.