What Are the Consequences and Determinants of Trade Protection?

贸易保护的后果和决定因素是什么？

• 批准号: 2242367
• 负责人: Dave Donaldson
• 金额: $ 52.7万
• 依托单位: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-15 至 2026-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2242367&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: What; Consequences; Determinants; Trade; Protection

This research examines two questions that are at the heart of the study of international economics: First, what effects do trade policies (such as import tariffs) have on economic outcomes such as imports, exports, and tariff revenue? And second, which groups of society are relatively favored by the trade policy that is in place at any given time? Economists use elaborate numerical simulations to answer the first of these questions, both in order to evaluate policy changes that have already happened and to predict the potential consequences of policy proposals. The research in this project develops new statistical procedures that can be used to assess the validity of such simulations. Provided such simulations pass these validity tests, they can then be used to quantify how imports and exports impact the real incomes of different groups of society (based, for example, on their sector of employment or their region of residence). The patterns of such estimated impacts are then used in the project to understand the extent to which any given policy (such as the one currently in place for a given setting of interest) benefits and/or harms distinct groups, without the need to take a stand on how that policy was arrived at or what stated goals may have been behind its origination.The first component of this research focuses on the welfare consequences of trade protection. Historically estimates of such impacts have relied on the counterfactual simulations of quantitative trade models. To help assess and potentially strengthen the credibility of the predictions of quantitative trade models, this research develops a new testing procedure that is intuitive, easy to implement, and consistent with standard practices in the field. This procedure is then applied to the dramatic tariff changes that took place among the United States and certain trading partners in 2018. The second component focuses on the political-economy determinants of trade protection. The starting point is a new and general optimal tariff formula that relies on the assumption that trade taxes are constrained Pareto efficient, but otherwise does not require any restriction on preferences, technology, market structure or the specifics of the political process. This formula highlights how optimal tariffs vary with the Pareto weights of different constituents of society -- which reflects the political determinants of trade protection -- as well as how marginal changes in imports affect their real earnings -- which reflects the economic determinants of trade protection. Empirically, the research begins by estimating these economic determinants (in the same 2018 context as for the first component) and then combines them with the new formula for optimal tariffs in order to estimate what Pareto weights must be given the observed cross-sectional variation in trade policy. Armed with such non-parametric estimates of political determinants of protection, a final step of the research seeks to quantify the extent to which they can be accounted for by leading political-economy models of trade policy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项研究研究了两个国际经济学研究核心的问题：首先，贸易政策（例如进口关税）对诸如进口，出口和关税收入等经济成果有什么影响？ 其次，哪个社会群体受到任何给定时间的贸易政策的青睐？经济学家使用精心制作的数值模拟来回答这些问题的第一个问题，以评估已经发生的政策变化并预测政策建议的潜在后果。该项目的研究开发了新的统计程序，可用于评估此类模拟的有效性。如果此类模拟通过了这些有效性测试，则可以用来量化进口和出口如何影响不同社会群体的实际收入（例如，基于其就业领域或其居住区）。然后，在项目中使用了这种估计影响的模式，以了解任何给定的政策（例如目前为给定感兴趣的设置的政策）和/或危害不同的群体的程度，而无需对该政策的产生方式或所陈述的目标产生影响。从历史上看，这种影响的估计取决于定量贸易模型的反事实模拟。为了帮助评估和潜在地增强定量贸易模型预测的可信度，本研究开发了一种直观，易于实施的新测试程序，并且与该领域的标准实践一致。然后将该程序应用于美国和某些贸易伙伴在2018年之间发生的巨大关税变化。第二部分重点是贸易保护的政治经济决定因素。起点是一种新的最佳关税公式，依赖于贸易税受到限制有效的假设，但否则不需要对偏好，技术，市场结构或政治过程的细节进行任何限制。该公式强调了最佳关税与社会不同成分的帕累托权重的变化 - 反映了贸易保护的政治决定因素 - 以及进口的边际变化如何影响其实际收入 - 这反映了其实际收入 - 这反映了贸易保护的经济决定因素。从经验上讲，研究首先是估算这些经济决定因素（在2018年与第一个组件相同的情况下），然后将它们与最佳关税的新公式结合在一起，以估算必须考虑到贸易政策中观察到的横截面变化。该研究的最后一步凭借对保护的政治决定因素的这种非参数估计，旨在量化领先的贸易政策政治经济模型可以考虑到它们的程度。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的智力优点和广泛的影响来评估CRITERIA CRITERIA的评估。