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Journal of Political Economy Vol. 126 No. 3 2018

Cooperation in WTO’s Tariff Waters?

Alessandro Nicita1; Marcelo Olarreaga2,3,4; Peri Silva5

1 United Nations · 2 University of Geneva · 3 Economic Policy Institute · 4 Centre for Economic Policy Research · 5 Kansas State University

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which tariff cooperation is observed among World Trade Organization members. With the help of a simple political economy model, we show that tariffs are positively correlated with the importer’s market power when they are set noncooperatively but negatively correlated when set cooperatively. We use this prediction to empirically identify the extent of cooperation in the WTO and find that more than three-quarters of WTO members’ tariffs are set noncooperatively.

DOI
10.1086/697085
Volume
126
Issue
3
Pages
1302-1338
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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