Our analysis is motivated by cases of cigarette smuggling in Canada and in the UK. In the 1990s, domestic cigarettes were legally exported to be subsequently illegally imported. At first, smuggling was done by individual consumers who bought cigarettes abroad and brought them back through...

Specific tariffs are more commonly applied in agriculture than in the rest of the economy. We argue that the volatility of agricultural commodity markets is a contributing factor by showing that higher expected welfare can be achieved with the optimal specific tariff than with its ad valorem...

We first show in the context of sequential multi-unit auctions under complete information that a seller’s revenue may increase or decrease as the number of buyers increases, even when the additional bidders win an object. We use data from the Quebec daily hog auction to empirically analyze the...

This paper shows that a Tariff-Rate-Quota's (TRQ) minimum access expansion can perversely trigger domestic price increases. Often, TRQs have prohibitive over-quota tariffs to mimic import quotas in providing minimum market access. In the WTO's Doha Round, it is likely that countries using TRQs...

Country of origin labeling (COOL) is a common practice. It occurs routinely for many products in many places, but the US implementation of mandatory COOL for meat, whose purpose is to identify the origin of the livestock used to produce the meat, generated much controversy and a major WTO...

This essay shows the role of economics in the adulteration of food imports.The mechanism of impact in the model is the choice of input quality by exporting firms. One implication of the model is that conomic variables can be used to predict adulteration in food imports. The essay offers an...

Consumption of high-ethanol gasoline blends must increase if United States renewable biofuel mandates are to rise above current levels as envisioned by the Renewable Fuel Standard. One such blend is E85 which contains no more than 85% ethanol and no less than 15% gasoline. We derive the demand...

Recent food scares such as the discoveries of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and E. coli-contaminated spinach have heightened interest in food traceability. Here, we show how exogenous increases in food traceability create incentives for farms and marketing firms to supply safer food by...

Recent food scares such as the discoveries of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and "E. coli"-contaminated spinach have heightened interest in food traceability. Here, we show how exogenous increases in food traceability create incentives for farms and marketing firms to supply safer food by...