The Japanese pork market is protected by a complex set of restrictions, including a variable levy and an import tariff. The combination of these policies distorts the quantity, price, and form of Japanese pork imports. An important issue relevant to the liberalization of the Japanese pork market...

This paper investigates whether a small country facing foreign price instability benefits from active stabilization of the domestic price of the importable. If the random tariff revenue is rebated ex post, domestic price stabilization increases income instability, and nonintervention is optimal....