While new conventional wisdom warns that developing countries should be aware of the risks of premature capital account liberalization, the costs of not removing exchange controls have received much less attention. This paper investigates the negative effects of exchange controls on trade. To...

Why do governments employ inefficient policies to redistribute income towards special interest groups (SIGs) when more efficient ones are available? To address this puzzle we derive and test predictions for a set of policies where detailed data is available and an efficiency ranking is feasible:...

This paper considers the implications of relationship-specific investment within keiretsu for policies aimed at opening the Japanese market for intermediate goods, such as auto parts. Both VIEs applied to parts and VERs restricting Japanese exports of autos cause the keiretsu to import a wider...

Standards and technical regulations which govern the admissibility of imported goods into an economy raise costs of exporters entering new markets, and may have a particularly high impact on firms seeking to export from developing countries. Yet standards may also have a positive side, such as...

In May, 1981, a voluntary export restraint (VER) was placed on exports of automobiles from Japan to the United States. As trade policies go, this one was important. At about the same time, though to much less fanfare, international trade theorists were obtaining (then) startling results from...

The European Community's economic integration by 1992 is predicted to have large economic benefits. According to traditional trade theory, the gains will come only with permanent resource migration and significant factor price changes (since in principle all trade barriers have already been...

This paper develops a model of informal procurement within Japanese keiretsu so as to consider effects on intermediate-good imports, such as auto parts. Parts-suppliers make relationship-specific investments that benefit the auto-maker and prices are determined by bargaining after investment has...

This paper has two aims. First, to examine alternative ways of modeling VERS in imperfectly competitive markets. This is important, since the. effects of VERS are sensitive to the models used. Second, to argue that the effects of VERS also depend on whether goods are complements or Substitutes....

Structurally estimating the Grossman and Helpman (1994) model using coverage ratios that include non-tariff barriers leads to biased parameter estimates. We develop a quot;protection for salequot; theoretical framework consistent with the data, by explicitly allowing for non-tariff barriers....

The outcome of trade policies to increase access for foreign firms to the home country's market is shown to be sensitive to the implementation procedure used. The importance of the timing of moves between government and firms is highlighted by focusing on taxes and subsidies to implement minimum...