This paper offers a selective, interpretative survey of the literature on the political-support component of the political economy of international trade policy. Much of the literature is characterized either by a discrepancy between what policymakers say they are doing and how the theory models...

This paper offers a selective, interpretative survey of the literature on the political economy of international trade policy. Unilateral trade policy and multilateral trade agreements are covered, but preferential trading arrangements are not. Much of the literature is characterized either by a...

Based on the political support function model by Hillman (1982), we consider the choice of policy instruments in environmental regulation. More specifically, we extend the Hillman model so that it can incorporate the connection between the relative strength of lobby groups, the chosen level of...

Real life implies that public procurement contracting of renewable resources results in repeated interaction between a principal and the agents. The present paper analyses ratchet effects in contracting of renewable resources and how the presence of a resource constraint alters the...

This paper proposes a new test of the Protection for Sale (PFS) model by Grossman and Helpman (1994). Unlike existing methods in the literature, our approach does not require any data on political organization. We use quantile and IV quantile regressions to do so using the data from Gawande and...

This paper proposes a new test of the Protection for Sale (PFS) model by Grossman and Helpman (1994). Unlike existing methods in the literature, our approach does not require any data on political organization. We use quantile and IV quantile regressions in our tests, using the data from Gawande...

The Grossman and Helpman (1994) model explains tariffs as the outcome of a lobbying game between special interests and the government. Most empirical implementations of this framework use instead non-tariff barriers to measure the extent of protection. Importantly, while the former set of...

Labor market rigidities are commonly believed to be a major reason for imposing trade impediments. In this paper, I introduce labor market rigidities (such as influential trade unions and high unemployment benefits), that are prevalent in continental European countries, into the well-known...

Labor market rigidities are commonly believed to be a major reason for imposing trade impediments. In this paper, I introduce labor market rigidities (such as influential trade unions and high unemployment benefits), that are prevalent in continental European countries, into the well-known...

Labor market rigidities are commonly believed to be a major reason for imposing trade impediments. In this paper, I introduce labor market rigidities (such as influential trade unions and high unemployment benefits), that are prevalent in continental European countries, into the well-known...