The theoretical debate over whether countries can and should set tariffs in response to the foreign export elasticities they face goes back to Edgeworth (1894). Despite the centrality of the optimal tariff argument in trade policy, there exists no evidence about whether countries actually...

With 150 member countries, and 29 more currently in the process of accession, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the most important body governing international trade. However, there is little theory on how governments choose between alternative redistribution policies and no work has been...

There is a growing number of studies that investigate the effect of trade liberalization on productivity and nearly all assume that trade policy is independently determined of productivity, hence it is exogenous. I show that this assumption is generally invalid both theoretically and...