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Published November 1990 | public
Journal Article

Voter Preferences for Trade Policy Instruments

Abstract

We analyze voter preferences for tariffs and production subsidies. The distribution of tax revenues argument shows that voters with high direct tax burdens prefer tariffs to subsidies. The uncertainty argument demonstrates that if actual tariff and subsidy rates are chosen from the set of individually optimal rates then the range of tariff rates is smaller than the range of subsidy rates. Thus, tariffs might be preferred even though they are less efficient. Finally, the large country argument shows that if a country is large then voters whose income shares decline with more protection prefer tariffs to subsidies.

Additional Information

© 1990 Wiley. Comments by Jagdish Bhagwati, Dani Rodrik, and participants in the Columbia Conference on Political Economy and International Economics, as well as by Costas Syropoulos and seminar participants at Pennsylvania State University and the University of Western Ontario are greatly appreciated.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 17, 2023