Based on the observation that industries are often geographically concentrated, this paper proposes a new political economy model of trade protection. We associate the sectors of a specific factors model with electoral districts populated by continua of heterogeneous voters who differ in their...

We extend the protection for sale framework by modelling non tariff barriers. Explicitly introducing partial rent capturing leads to a testable specification that bridges the gap between the theoretical Grossman and Helpman (1994) model and its empirical implementation, where coverage ratios...

This paper analyzes the dynamics of trade policy reform under democracy. In an overlapping generations model, heterogeneous agents may acquire skills when young, thereby determining the skill composition of their cohort. Current and anticipated trade policies influence education decisions, and...