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Abstract:
Recent literature has explored both physical and policy linkage between trade and environment. Here we explore linkage through leverage in bargaining, whereby developed countries can use trade policy threats to achieve improved developing country environmental management, while developing countries can use environmental concessions to achieve trade disciplines in developed countries. We use a global numerical simulation model to compute bargaining outcomes from linked trade and environment negotiations, comparing developed-developing country bargaining only on trade policy with joint bargaining on both trade and domestic environmental policies. Results indicate joint gains from expanding the trade bargaining set to include environment, opposite to the current developing country reluctance to negotiate in the World Trade Organization on this issue. However, compared to bargaining with cash side payments, linking trade and environment through negotiation on policy instruments provides significantly inferior developing country outcomes. Thus, a trade and environment policy-linked negotiation may be better than an environment-only negotiation, but negotiating compensation to developing countries for environmental restraint would be better. We provide sensitivity and further analysis of our results and indicate what other factors could qualify our main finding, including the erosion of the MFN principle involved with environmentally based trade actions.

Abstract:
Recent literature has explored both physical and policy linkage between trade and environment. Here we explore linkage through leverage in bargaining, whereby developed countries can use trade policy threats to achieve improved developing country environmental management, while developing countries can use environmental concessions to achieve trade disciplines in developed countries. We use a global numerical simulation model to compute bargaining outcomes from linked trade and environment negotiations, comparing developed-developing country bargaining only on trade policy with joint bargaining on both trade and domestic environmental policies. Results indicate joint gains from expanding the trade bargaining set to include environment, opposite to the current developing country reluctance to negotiate in the World Trade Organization on this issue. However, compared to bargaining with cash side payments, linking trade and environment through negotiation on policy instruments provides significantly inferior developing country outcomes. Thus, a trade and environment policy linked negotiation may be better than a trade-only negotiation for developing countries, but compensation for environmental restraint would be even better for them. We provide sensitivity and further analysis of our results and indicate what other factors could qualify our main finding, including the erosion of the MFN principle involved with environmentally based trade actions.

Abstract:
We describe a model of international, multidimensional policy coordination where countries can enter into selective and separate agreements with different partners along different policy dimensions. The model is used to examine the implications of negotiation tie-in - the requirement that agreements must span multiple dimensions of interaction - for the viability of multilateral cooperation when countries are linked by international trade flows and transboundary pollution. We show that, while in some cases negotiation tie-in has either no effect or can make multilateral cooperation more viable, in others a formal tie-in constraint can make an otherwise viable joint multilateral agreement unstable.

International Cooperation, Trade And Environmental Policy Negotiations

Abstract:
We explore the relationship between international policy coordination and domestic policy credibility when both must be self-supporting. Our arguments are presented in the context of a two-country, two-period model of dynamic emission abatement with transboundary pollution, where government policies suffer from a time-consistency problem. In the absence of repeated interaction, any form of coordination - between governments, and between governments and their respective private sectors - improves policy making. Nevertheless, under repeated interaction international policy spillovers can make it possible to overcome the domestic credibility problem; and, conversely, the inability to precommit to policy domestically can help support international policy cooperation.

Policy Commitment, Self-enforcing International Agreements

Abstract:
Differences in gender-based labour market discrimination across countries imply that migration may affect husbands and wives differently. If migrant wives experience a relative improvement in their labour market position, bargaining theory suggests that they should experience comparatively larger gains. However, if renegotiation possibilities are limited by institutional mechanisms that achieve long-term commitment, the opposite may be true, particularly if women are specialized in household activities and the labour market allows more flexibility in their labour supply choices. Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel indeed shows that, as long as renegotiation opportunities are limited, comparatively better wages for migrant women lead them to bear the double burden of market and household work.

International migration, gender discrimination, renegotiation

Abstract:
Differences in gender-based labor market discrimination across countries imply that migration may affect husbands and wives differently. If migrant wives experience a relative improvement in their labor market position, bargaining theory suggests that they should experience comparatively larger gains. However, if renegotiation possibilities are limited by institutional mechanisms that achieve long-term commitment, the opposite may be true, particularly if women are specialized in household activities and the labor market allows more flexibility in their labor supply choices. Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel indeed shows that, as long as renegotiation opportunities are limited, comparatively better wages for migrant women lead them to bear the double burden of market and household work.

International migration, gender discrimination, renegotiation

Abstract:
Bargaining theory suggests that married women who experience a relative improvement in their labour market position should experience a comparative gain within their marriage. However, if renegotiation possibilities are limited by institutional mechanisms that achieve long-term commitment, the opposite may be true, particularly if women are specialized in household activities and the labour market allows comparatively more flexibility in their labour supply responses. Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel indeed shows that, as long as renegotiation opportunities are limited, comparatively better wages for women exacerbate their 'double burden' of market and household work.

Bargaining, Marriage, Renegotiation

Abstract:
Bargaining theory suggests that married women who experience a relative improvement in their labour market position should experience a comparative gain within their marriage. However, if renegotiation possibilities are limited by institutional mechanisms that achieve long-term commitment, the opposite may be true, particularly if women are specialized in household activities and the labour market allows comparatively more flexibility in their labour supply responses. Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel indeed shows that, as long as renegotiation opportunities are limited, comparatively better wages for women exacerbate their 'double burden' of market and household work.

bargaining, marriage and renegotiation

Abstract:
Using a general-equilibrium model of world trade, this paper evaluates the benefits of most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment to developing countries in multilateral relative to bilateral or regional trade agreements, from three sources. First, developing countries may be able to free-ride on bilateral tariff concessions exchanged between larger countries in MFN-based GATT/WTO rounds. Second, MFN benefits developing countries by restricting discriminatory retaliatory actions by other countries, evaluated here by a non-cooperative Nash tariff game. Finally, MFN changes threat points in bargaining and hence affects the bargaining solution of multilateral MFN-based trade negotiation compared to a bilateral/regional arrangement. The authors find that the benefits to developing countries are small in the first case as the tariff rates are already low, and the benefits are small in the second case as the optimal tariffs under unconstrained retaliation are not very asymmetric. Benefits from the third case are large as large countries can extract large side-payments if they bargain bilaterally.

Abstract:
Several of the recently negotiated regional trade agreements contain significantly fewer concessions by the large countries to smaller countries than vice versa. In this paper, we compute post-retaliation Nash tariffs by region under various regional trade arrangements using a calibrated numerical general equilibrium model of world trade. Regional agreements constrain strategic behaviour within each trading area, and (in the Customs Union case) enhance it outside the bloc. Results confirm the intuition that without side payments large-small country regional agreements (such as the Canada-U.S. agreement) would not have occurred.

Abstract:
Several of the recently negotiated regional trade agreements (Canada-U.S., NAFTA, E.C.-Hungary/Poland/Czeck and Slovak Republics) contain significantly fewer concessions by the large countries to smaller countries than vice versa. Yet, it is small countries that have sought them and see themselves as the main beneficiaries. In this paper we attempt to resolve this seeming paradox by interpreting such agreements as insurance arrangements for smaller countries, which partially protect them against the consequences of a global trade war. What they offer to the large countries in return is largely non-trade benefits (such as restraints on domestic policies in the smaller countries, firmer intellectual property protection, firmer guarantees of royalty arrangements affecting resources on state-owned lands). When evaluated alongside the regional trade arrangements of the 1960s (such as the E.C.), these agreements may appear to produce little or no benefit relative to the status quo for smaller countries; but when evaluated relative to a post-retaliation tariff equilibrium, the value of these agreements to small countries is large because they help preserve existing access to larger foreign markets. There is little incentive for large countries to negotiate such arrangements without side payments of the non-trade variety, because these agreements constrain their ability to play strategically against smaller neighbouring countries (who are still important trade partners) in a trade war. Such regional agreements compared across constrained and unconstrained Nash outcomes will typically be welfare worsening for large countries, and side payments are needed for the

Abstract:
We examine the relationship between international policy coordination and domestic policy reputation when both are self-sustaining. We show that domestic policy commitment does not necessarily facilitate international cooperation; rather, efficient polices may be most easily sustained when countries are unable to pre-commit to policy domestically. Moreover, lack of domestic commitment is more likely to facilitate international cooperation the larger are the international spillovers of domestic policies.

International agreements, domestic policy commitment

Abstract:
Taxation is only sustainable if the general public complies with it. This observation is uncontroversial with tax practitioners but has been ignored by the public finance tradition, which has interpreted tax constitutions as binding contracts by which the power to tax is irretrievably conferred by individuals to government, which can then levy any tax it chooses. In the absence of an outside party enforcing contracts between members of a group, however, no arrangement within groups can be considered to be a binding contract, and therefore, the power to tax must be sanctioned by individuals on an ongoing basis. In this Paper, we offer, for the first time, a theoretical analysis of this fundamental compliance problem associated with taxation, obtaining predictions that in some cases point to a re-interpretation of the theoretical constructions of the public finance tradition while in others call them into question.

Taxation, public goods, government

Abstract:
We consider a setting in which capital taxation is characterized by two distortions working in opposite directions. On one hand, governments engage in tax competition and are tempted to lower capital tax rates. On the other hand, they are unable to commit to future policies and, once capital has been installed, have incentives to increase taxes. In this setting, there exists a tax that optimally trades off the two distortions. We compare three possible tax harmonization scenarios: no tax harmonization (all countries set taxes unilaterally), global tax harmonization (all countries coordinate their capital taxes), and partial tax harmonization (only a subset of all countries coordinate capital taxes). We show that, if capital is sufficiently mobile, partial tax harmonization benefits all countries compared to both global and no harmonization. Our analysis provides a rationale for the proposed creation of an Enhanced Cooperation Agreement on capital taxes within the European Union.

Tax competition, commitment, partial coordination

Abstract:
We examine the theoretical rationale for the simultaneous granting of temporary Special and Differential (S&D) treatment to developing countries - both in ite protection and market-access components - under the WTO agreements. S&D rules constitute the centrepiece of the WTO's strategy for integrating developing countries into the trading system, but have been criticized - both on theoretical and empirical grounds - as being ineffective. We show that seemingly non-reciprocal, limited-duration S&D treatment can be rationalized as a transitional equilibrium feature of a self-enforcing international agreement between a large developed and a small developing country, where the two sides have a joint interest in helping the developing country to overcome a policy commitment problem.

Policy commitment, international agreements, trade and development

Abstract:
We discuss most favoured nation (MFN) treatment in trade agreements, suggesting that its value to individual countries depends critically on the relevant model solution concept used to evaluate it. We analyze both rights to MFN treatment in foreign markets, and the obligation to grant MFN treatment in home markets; the heart of the post-war GATT/WTO multilateral trading system. In a traditional competitive equilibrium framework, MFN gives benefits to small countries in being able to free ride on bilateral tariff concessions exchanged between larger countries in GATT/WTO negotiating rounds. In a non-cooperative Nash equilibrium framework, MFN restrains retaliatory actions to be non-discriminatory. In a co-operative bargaining framework in which trade policies are jointly set, MFN changes the threat point and hence affects the bargaining solution. We use a calibrated numerical model of global trade in which we compute all three solution concepts and compare MFN and non MFN equilibria for each. We use the GTAP (1992) data base, concluding that quantitatively the most significant effect of MFN seems to be in its impact on bargaining rather than on competitive and Nash equilibrium solutions; being beneficial to smaller countries.

Abstract:
No abstract is available for this paper.

Abstract:
We discuss most favoured nation (MFN) treatment in trade agreements, and its significance for developing countries, suggesting that its value to individual countries depends critically on the relevant model solution concept used to evaluate it. We analyze both rights to MFN treatment in foreign markets, and the obligation to grant MFN treatment in home markets; the heart of the post-war GATT/WTO multilateral trading system. In a traditional competitive equilibrium framework, MFN gives benefits to small countries in being able to free ride on bilateral tariff concessions exchanged between larger countries in GATT/WTO negotiating rounds. In a non-cooperative Nash equilibrium framework, MFN restrains retaliatory actions to be non-discriminatory. In a co-operative bargaining framework in which trade policies are jointly set, MFN changes the threat point and hence affects the bargaining solution. We use a calibrated numerical model of global trade in which we compute all three solution concepts and compare MFN and non MFN equilibria for each. We use the GTAP (1992) data base, concluding that quantitatively the most significant effect of MFN seems to be in its impact on bargaining rather than on competitive and Nash equilibrium solutions; being significantly beneficial in this regard to smaller developing countries.

International Trade, Developing Countries, Economic Models

Abstract:
This paper uses a calibrated general-equilibrium model of North-South trade with carbon emissions to explore the strategic, open-economy implications of price and quantity based instruments for CO2 emission reduction. We compute non-cooperative environmental and trade policy equilibria and Nash bargaining outcomes in environmental policies with side payments of cash. Results show that quotas can lead to higher internalization levels in a non-cooperative zero-tariff equilibrium in comparison with emission fees. If tariffs are also chosen non-cooperatively, the form of policy instrument used affects equilibrium tariffs, with quotas leading to lower trade barriers, particularly under a regional carbon treaty.

Abstract:
This paper examines the choice between alternative trade-based approaches to reducing global environmental damage, such as trade-related process standards and tariff-based approaches. Estimates of the effects of alternative policies are presented, using a calibrated global trade model with pollution externalities. Our findings are that both trade-related process standards and tariff-based policies are rather ineffective at reducing global emissions. The adoption of general process standards, however, might be exceedingly costly to developing countries.