国际贸易完整复习资料整理.pptVIP

Political Models of Trade Policy How is trade policy determined? Models that address this question: Median voter theorem Collective action A model of trade policy that combines aspects of collective action and the median voter theorem-political campaign contribution model Median Voter Theorem The median voter theorem predicts that democratic political parties may change their policies to court the voter in the middle of the ideological spectrum (i.e., the median voter). Suppose that this ideological spectrum is defined only by a tariff rate policy. And suppose that voters can be ranked according to whether they desire high or low tariff rates. Median Voter Theorem (cont.) Assumptions of the model: There are two competing political parties. The objective of each party is to get elected by majority vote (not to maintain ideological purity). What policies will the parties promise to follow? Both parties will offer the same tariff policy to court the median voter (the voter in the middle of the spectrum) in order to capture the most votes on either side of the median voter. Collective Action Political activity is often described as a collective action problem: While consumers as a group have an incentive to advocate free trade, each individual consumer has no incentive because his benefit is not large compared to the cost and time required to advocate free trade. Policies that impose large losses in for society as a whole but small losses on each individual may therefore not face strong opposition. Collective Action (cont.) However, for those groups who may suffer large losses from free trade (for example, unemployment), each individual in that group has a strong incentive to advocate the policy he desires. In this case, the cost and time required to advocate restricted trade is small compared to the cost of unemployment. World Trade Organization The WTO negotiations address trade restrictions in at least 3 ways: Reduction of tariff rates through multilateral negotiati