Rules Versus Discretion in Trade Policy: An Empirical Anaylsis

贸易政策中的规则与自由裁量权：实证分析

• 批准号: 8911188
• 负责人: Robert Staiger
• 金额: $ 5.51万
• 依托单位: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1989
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1989-08-01 至 1991-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8911188&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Rules; Versus; Discretion; Trade; Policy

The debate on the efficacy of rules versus discretion has received a great deal of attention in the theory of economic policy, in macroeconomics, public finance and in trade policy. But the existing literature has focussed almost exclusively on theoretical aspects of this debate. To date there has been virtually no empirical study of how relevant the distinction between rules and discretion is in the real world. Trade policy lends itself particularly well to an empirical investigation of these issues, for two reasons. First, the theory yields very sharp predictions of how a trade policy chosen under discretion differs from that chosen under rules. Second, and perhaps more important, trade policy in the U.S. is implemented under a variety of institutional arrangements. A major difference among some of these arrangements is the commitment technologies that they provide. Hence, by comparing the policies implemented within these different environments, one can examine whether the capacity to undertake binding policy commitments matters or not. This project represents an empirical exploration into the effects of government discretion on trade policy decision-making. The theoretical literature on time-consistent trade policy suggests that government discretion may be counter productive, and that reliance on a simple set of trade policy rules may be preferred to endowing trade policy makers with a high degree of policy discretion. This research proceeds on the premise that tariff decisions made in the context of escape clause actions (section 201 of the United States Trade Act of 1974) and the determination of exclusions from the tariff reductions negotiated under the Tokyo Round form a natural experiment that can be used to assess the impact of policy discretion on trade policy decisions. The former decisions were made in an environment in which the government possessed a high level of discretion relative to the allocation decisions of those factors of production affected by the government choice. The latter decisions were implemented only after a substantial time lag, and were thus made in a setting in which the government possessed little discretion relative to the relevant factor allocation decisions. The aim of this study is to analyze differences in the government decisions made in each of the two environments, and to ask whether or not systematic differences exist which would suggest that trade policy discretion leads governments to be trapped in sub-optimal time-consistent tariff equilibria. The answer to this question has very important implications for economic policy and for trade policy in particular. A finding that the two environments lead to systematically different policies would imply that policies conducted under rules tend to dominate policies chosen under discretion; as a consequence a institutions providing a commitment technology would be valuable. The opposite conclusions would be reached if instead the two environments led to similar policies or to policies that differed on dimensions other than those predicted by theory.

关于规则与自由裁量权的效力的辩论 在经济理论中受到了极大的关注， 宏观经济学、公共财政和贸易政策。 但现有的文献几乎完全集中在 这场辩论的理论方面。 迄今为止， 几乎没有实证研究表明 在真实的世界里。 贸易政策特别适合于一个经验主义的 调查这些问题，有两个原因。 一是 理论对贸易政策的选择做出了非常准确的预测， 自由裁量权下的选择不同于规则下的选择。 第二、 也许更重要的是，美国的贸易政策 在各种体制安排下实施。 一 其中一些安排的主要区别是， 他们提供的技术。 因此，通过比较 在这些不同的环境中实施的策略， 人们可以研究采取约束性政策的能力 承诺重要与否。 该项目代表了对影响的实证探索 政府在贸易政策决策中的自由裁量权。 的 关于时间一致性贸易政策的理论文献表明， 政府的自由裁量权可能会适得其反， 依靠一套简单的贸易政策规则可能是可取的 赋予贸易政策制定者高度的政策 自行决定 这项研究的前提是， 在免责条款诉讼中作出的决定（第 1974年《美国贸易法》第201条）和 确定谈判的关税削减的例外情况 在东京回合下形成一个自然的实验， 评估政策自由裁量权对贸易政策的影响 决策 以前的决定是在一个环境中作出的， 政府拥有高度的自由裁量权 相对于这些因素的分配决定， 生产受政府选择的影响。 后者 决定是在很长一段时间后才实施的， 因此，在政府拥有 相对于相关要素分配而言， 决策 本研究的目的是分析 政府在这两种环境下做出的决策， 并询问是否存在系统性差异， 贸易政策的自由裁量权会导致政府 陷入次优的时间一致关税均衡。 这个问题的答案对以下方面有着非常重要的意义 经济政策，特别是贸易政策。 一个查找 这两种环境导致了系统性的不同 政策意味着在规则下执行的政策往往 支配在自由裁量权下选择的政策;因此， 提供承诺技术的机构将是有价值的。 相反的结论会得出，如果这两个 环境导致了相似的政策或不同的政策 在理论预测之外的维度上。