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Abstract:
The choice between temporary and permanent migration is today central to the design of migration policies. We draw a distinction between the two types of migration on the basis of the associated social cost and the dynamics of learning by migrants. We find that unilateral migration policies are globally inefficient because they lead to too much permanent migration and too little temporary and overall migration. Existing international agreements on labor mobility, such as the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services, have failed to do better because they seek primarily to induce host countries to make commitments to allow entry. Instead, Pareto gains and more liberal migration could be achieved through multilateral agreements that enable host countries to commit to repatriation.

Abstract:
The paper compares tariffs and import quotas when the home firm has private information about its true cost and the government offers incentive contracts to extract this information. We highlight the role of underlying market structure in determining the ranking of the two policy instruments. Our results show that quotas are at least as efficient as tariffs in implementing the optimal level of protection and strictly more for a wide range of market structures. The exact condition for this is identified. Welfare-based ranking of the two instruments follows from this.

Tariffs versus quotas, asymmetric information, market structure

Abstract:
We analyze the role of imperfect competition in explaining the relationship between temporary surges in trade-volumes and the level of cooperation in trade policy that can be sustained between countries in a repeated game framework. Imperfectly competitive markets are characterized by a mark-up which is the wedge between equilibrium price and the marginal cost of production. Absent domestic policy tools, gains from protectionist policies are shown to depend positively on the size of the mark-up in the domestic import-competing sector, which is in addition to the conventional terms-of-trade related benefits. A temporary surge in trade-volume due to a supply-side shock lowers the industry mark-up making protectionist policies less desirable. This counters the increase in the terms-of-trade related benefits due to higher trade-volume. The net effect of these two competing forces determines whether periods of abnormally high trade-volumes feature more or less cooperation along the equilibrium path of the repeated game. We identify simple conditions distinguishing between these two outcomes thereby establishing the pattern of managed trade under imperfect competition. A sharp distinction is drawn between demand side and supply side shocks. We suggest a simple generalization of the results to other forms of distortions.

Imperfect Competition, Managed Trade

Abstract:
In this paper we address the issue of multilateralism versus bilateralism in a situation where a home government's optimal policy is time-inconsistent and the time-consistent policy sub-optimal. Short-run production and wage rigidities create incentive for the government to surprise private agents, ex post, with excessive protection. The problem is shown to be particularly severe when the intended beneficiaries (members of the lobby) cannot coordinate on their (investment) decisions fully. A commitment to multilateral free trade may then be welfare enhancing and politically feasible. However, once a discriminatory Preferential Trade Agreement is formed, it undermines any incentive for further multilateral trade liberalization. Thus, we propose another reason why Article XXIV of GATT/WTO may be a stumbling bloc for wider multilateral trade liberalization. Our result is based on the trade deflection effect and the market power effect of Preferential Trade Agreements.

Time inconsistency, multilateralism, stumbling blocs, commitment

Abstract:
In a model with cost-based informational asymmetry and trade policy determined endogenously, we show that tariffs and import-quotas have different sensitivities to the signal sent by the private agents to the home government. Specifically, the optimal quota is shown to be more sensitive than the optimal tariff as measured in terms of the reduction in equilibrium import-volume caused by the change in the government's perception about the true cost of the domestic firm. Consequently, signaling distortion is larger in the quota regime than in the tariff regime. Non-equivalence between the two policy tools follows from this difference in their sensitivities. The model is benchmarked so that under complete information tariffs and quotas are equivalent.

Trade Policy, Signaling