The Gains from Free Trade
The Gains from Free Trade
复制标题
自由贸易的好处
DOI：
10.4324/9780203027271.ch2
复制
发表时间：
1980
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
V. Norman
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Dixit;V. Norman
大多数关于与许多消费者进行贸易的好处的主张只认为一次性转移支付是再分配工具。人们普遍认为，除非这种转让是可能的，否则什么都谈不上。在本说明中，我们表明，这种信念，以及随之而来的关于贸易理论中的福利命题的适用性的悲观主义，是没有根据的。间接消费税足以使自由贸易帕累托优于限制贸易，在同一考虑下，在单一消费者的情况下，自由贸易优于限制贸易，即贸易限制不会带来贸易条件收益。这扩展了Dijorge和Norman（1980，第3章）的一些早期工作。我们论点的实质很简单。假设政府可以对所有进入个人消费者效用函数的商品征税，即对所有商品和所有要素征税。然后，通过适当选择税率，政府可以在从限制贸易转向自由贸易时保持所有消费者价格不变。这将使所有消费者需求和公用事业水平保持不变。如果这样一个方案是可行的，在这个意义上，它给政府带来非负的收入，这意味着所有消费者都可以在自由贸易和限制贸易中过得一样好，从而证明了自由贸易的帕累托优越性。如果政府收入在这样一个方案下严格为正，那么只要降低所有消费者需求为正的某些商品的消费税税率，自由贸易就可以变得非常优越上级。
Most propositions on the gains from trade with many consumers consider only lump-sum transfers as redistributive tools. It is widely believed that nothing can be said unless such transfers are possible. In this note we show that such a belief, and the consequent pessimism concerning the applicability of welfare propositions in trade theory, are groundless. Indirect consumer taxes are sufficient to make free trade Pareto-superior to restricted trade under the same consitions that would make free trade better than restricted trade in the one-consumer case, i.e. that there be no terms-of-trade gain from trade restrictions. This extends some earlier work in Dixit and Norman (1980, ch.3). The essence of our argument is simple. Suppose the government can levy taxes on all commodities entering individual consumers' utility functions, i.e. on all goods and all factors. Then, by appropriate choices of tax rates, the government can leave all consumer prices unchanged when moving from restricted trade to free trade. That will leave all consumer demands and utility levels unchanged. If such a scheme is feasible, in the sense that it gives non-negative government revenue, it means that all consumers can be made as well off with free trade as with restricted trade, thus proving weak Pareto-superiority of free trade. If government revenue is strictly positive under such a scheme, free trade can be made strongly superior simply by lowering the consumption tax rate on some good that all consumers demand in a positive quantity.