This paper examines the optimality of export subsidies in oligopolistic markets, when home and foreign firms have different costs and there is an opportunity cost to public funds. Subsidies are found to be optimal only for surprisingly low values of the shadow price of government funds, and if...

We investigate whether a welfare-maximizing government ought to pursue a programme of strategic trade intervention or instead commit itself to free trade when, in the former case, domestic firms will have an opportunity to manipulate the government’s choice of the level of intervention....

The theory of strategic trade policy yields ambiguous recommendations for assistance to exporting firms in oligopolistic industries. Some writers have, however, suggested that investment subsidies are a more robust recommendation than export subsidies. We show that, though ambiguous in...

We examine optimal industrial and trade policies in a series of dynamic oligopoly games in which a home and a foreign firm compete in R&D and output. Alternative assumptions about the timing of moves and the ability of agents to commit intertemporally are considered. We show that the home export...

We characterize optimal trade and industrial policy in dynamic oligopolistic markets. If governments can commit to future policies, optimal first-period intervention should diverge from the profit-shifting benchmark to an extent which exactly offsets the strategic behaviour implied by Fudenberg...

This paper explores the links between international trade theory and the practice of trade and industrial policy in open economies, with special attention to three areas where theoretical lessons have been misunderstood in policy debates. It argues that the ‘concertina rule’ for tariff...

This paper examines the rationale for multilateral agreements to limit investment subsidies. The welfare ranking of symmetric multilateral subsidy games is shown to depend on whether or not investment levels are "friendly", raising rival profits in total, and/or strategic complements, raising...

In thinking about policy, academic economists alternate between theoretical models in which governments can design finely-tuned optimal interventions and practical considerations which usually assume the government to be incompetent and hostage to special interests. I argue in this paper that...

This paper uses simulation techniques to investigate the effects of import tariffs and export subsidies on imperfectly competitive industries. A wide range of industries are studied and for each industry eight different types of firm and industry equilibrium concept are employed, so that the...

This paper compares adversarial with cooperative industrial and trade policies in a dynamic oligopoly game in which a home and foreign firm compete in R&D and output and, because of spillovers, each firm benefits from the other’s R&D. When the government can commit to an export subsidy, such a...