We scrutinize the impact of international productivity gains (spillovers) induced by imports and exports on optimal tariffs. First, we solve a stylized 2x2 trade model of a large open economy and show that (a) productivity gains via exports and imports both reduce the strategically optimal...

The 2008 financial crisis did not precipitate global retaliatory trade intervention, in seeming contrast to the Great Depression in 1930s. This paper discusses the influence of model structure in optimal tariff (OT) calculations in explaining this puzzle. We emphasize how earlier literature...

This paper examines theoretically the structure of optimal (Nash equilibrium) tariff rates under retaliation in a two-country economy with more than two traded goods. We provide a condition under which the equilibrium tariff rates become uniform in both countries, and explore the ranking of the...

This paper examines whether and how rainfall shocks affect tariff setting in the agricultural sector. In a model of strategic trade policy, the authors show that the impact of a negative rainfall shock on optimal import tariffs is generally ambiguous, depending on the weight placed by the...

This paper analyzes interdependencies between optimal trade policy and ‘preferred' liability doctrine to assess infringement damages, when intellectual property rights are probabilistic, in a model of import competition between a foreign patentee and a domestic infringer. It shows two reversal...