Governments set numerous norms to protect consumers. Two countries may achieve the same level of protection of their consumers through different specifications. The adaptation costs induced by these differences create barriers to trade. The principle of mutual recognition addresses the problem...

This paper studies the interdependence of economic geography and transportation technology. A two-region model is used to obtain the conditions for the modern transportation technology to be adopted in an economy. In particular, the impact of economic geography upon the adoption of the modern...

This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization when monopolistically competitive and oligopolistic firms coexist in the same market. The model is characterized by a group of multi-product firms which behave strategically and take their impact on market aggregates into account (e.g. the...

In this paper, we analyze the trade war between two large countries when the trade policy is decided through majority voting. We show how the trade war equilibrium depends on the median voter production factor relative endowment. We compare this equilibrium to the one analyzed by Johnson where...

The paper shows that global pollution need not rise under free trade in goods and/or emissions even in the complete absence of income effects. Differences in environmental concerns across the countries lead to differences in the pollution-intensity of production and thus generate the possibility...

We consider the following stage game : a domestic government chooses an import quota, then a domestic and a foreign firm choose their quality level before engaging a price competition. We first show that the indirect effect of the quota on the sales of the domestic producer are different...

This paper analyzes the role of retaliation in trade agreements. It shows that, in the presence of private information, retaliation can always be used to increase the welfare derived from such agreements by the participating governments. In particular, it is shown that retaliation is a necessary...

We consider the two-stage game proposed by Kreps and Scheinkman [83] in the address model of horizontal differentiation developed by Hotelling. Firms choose capacities in the first stage and then compete in price. We show that capacity precommitment softens price competition drastically. In...