Arbeitspapier

Trade policy uncertainty and the WTO

Do WTO commitments reduce the risk of trade policy reversals? To address this question, we rely on the theoretical model of varying cooperative tariffs by Bagwell and Staiger (1990) to specify our empirical model for the probability of a tariff increase. We then study how WTO tariff commitments affect this probability. We estimate our model using a database of WTO bound tariffs that we built for all WTO Members from 1996 to 2011 at the HS 6-digit level of disaggregation. Our results show that WTO commitments significantly reduce the probability of a tariff increase, even when the bound tariff is above the MFN applied rate. In addition, the WTO reduces trade policy uncertainty through its monitoring function. These results are robust to including political economy explanations of tariff changes and to addressing endogeneity concerns.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: DIW Discussion Papers ; No. 1437

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Thema
gains from trade agreements
commitments
tariffs formation
binding overhang

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Groppo, Valeria
Piermartini, Roberta
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
(wo)
Berlin
(wann)
2014

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:46 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Groppo, Valeria
  • Piermartini, Roberta
  • Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)

Entstanden

  • 2014

Ähnliche Objekte (12)