Managed Trade with Imperfect Information

Abstract

This article illustrates the importance of imperfect information in self-enforcing trade agreements. It shows that expected welfare is higher with current period uncertainty, and a high level of uncertainty may even undermine the need for a safeguard clause. These results were derived by extending the seminal paper by Bagwell and Staiger (The American Economic Review 80 (1990), 779–95) to account for current period uncertainty.