In this paper we consider the case for subsidies towards firms which generate R&D spillovers in open economies. We show that many expected results are overturned in the presence of strategic behaviour by firms. Local R&D spillovers to other domestic firms may justify an R&D tax rather than a...

In this paper characterise optimal trade and industrial policy in dynamic oligopolistic markets. If governments can commit to future policies, optimal first-period intervention should diverge from the profit-shifting benchmark to an extent which exactly offsets the strategic behaviour implied by...

This paper examines the implications for strategic trade policy of different assumptions about precommitment. In a dynamic oligopoly game with learning by doing, the optimal first-period subsidy is lower if firms cannot precommit to future output than if they can; and is lower still if the...

This paper compares adversarial with cooperative industrial and trade policies in a dynamic oligopoly game in which a home and foreign firm compete in R&D and output and, because of spillovers, each firm benefits from the other's R&D. When the government can commit to an export subsidy, such a...

I consider the implications of recent research for R&D policy in developing countries. Typical new growth models, which assume free entry and no strategic behaviour by R&D producers, are less appropriate for policy guidance than strategic oligopoly models. But the latter have ambiguous...

Alternative methods of measuring the restrictiveness of trade policy are reviewed. A new measure is proposed and it is shown to be theoretically superior to other measures and to be easily implementable in practice. Measuring trade restrictiveness is an important aspect of evaluating the stance...

This paper introduces a new measure, the Trade Restrictiveness Index, which measures the restrictiveness of a system of trade protection. The index is a general equilibrium application of the distance function and answers the question: "What uniform set of trade restrictions is equivalent (in...

This paper explores the links between international trade theory and the practice of trade and industrial policy in open economies, with special attention to three areas where theoretical lessons have been misunderstood in policy debates. I argue that the 'concertina rule' for tariff reform...

I consider the problem of choosing index numbers of purchasing power and real income for international comparisons. I show that the desirable properties of methods based on the Fisher "Ideal" index do not extend to multilateral comparisons, except when tastes are homothetic. By contrast, the...

In this paper, we investigate techniques for measuring the trade policy equivalent of domestic distortions, using a distance function approach. Our measure, the Trade Restrictiveness Index, is shown to equal the uniform tariff which is welfare-equivalent to a given pattern of domestic taxes and...