Interest-group lobbying for free trade: An empirical case study of international trade policy formation

Rönnbäck, Klas

doi:10.1080/09638199.2014.884154

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Business interests exert influence also through their presence in the various trade Systematic studies of how interest groups on different sides of trade agreements shape the negotiations are rare, given the lack of transparency of the process. However, one analysis of Swedish lobbies takes advantage of the fact that Sweden has a far-reaching freedom of information clause in its constitution, which enabled Rönnbäck (2015) to access all the documents behind trade policy formulation in the country during the Uruguay Round. As Rönnbäck points out, the commonly maintained assumption in the literature on the political economy of trade is that the process is influenced overwhelmingly by import-competing, protectionist interests.…”

Section: Whose Interests Do Trade Agreements Serve?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, industry lobbies pushed for deep integration measures beyond the standard free-trade policies. Rönnbäck's (2015) study also documents how trade negotiations can help special interests coordinate across national borders. Apparently Swedish businesses initially did not show much awareness -or interest in -intellectual property rights.…”

Section: Whose Interests Do Trade Agreements Serve?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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What Do Trade Agreements Really Do?

Rodrik

2018

Journal of Economic Perspectives

283

129

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Economists have a tendency to associate “free trade agreements” all too closely with “free trade.” They may be unaware of some of the new (and often problematic) beyond-the-boarder features of current trade agreements. As trade agreements have evolved and gone beyond import tariffs and quotas into regulatory rules and harmonization— intellectual property, health and safety rules, labor standards, investment measures, investor–state dispute settlement procedures, and others—they have become harder to fit into received economic theory. It is possible that rather than neutralizing the protectionists, trade agreements may empower a different set of rent-seeking interests and politically well-connected firms—international banks, pharmaceutical companies, and multinational firms. Trade agreements could still result in freer, mutually beneficial trade, through exchange of market access. They could result in the global upgrading of regulations and standards, for labor, say, or the environment. But they could also produce purely redistributive outcomes under the guise of “freer trade.” As trade agreements become less about tariffs and nontariff barriers at the border and more about domestic rules and regulations, economists might do well to worry more about the latter possibility.

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Section: Whose Interests Do Trade Agreements Serve?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Whose Interests Do Trade Agreements Serve?mentioning

confidence: 99%

What Do Trade Agreements Really Do?

Rodrik

2018

Journal of Economic Perspectives

283

129

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is noteworthy that recent papers have started to appear in Journal of International Trade and Economic Development not only on theories of international trade, but also on the influence of political interests in the trade policy development, thus representing a special interdisciplinary approach -the intersection of economics and politics [Rönnbäck, 2015;Binder et al, 2018]. At the same time, these are empirical studies.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theoretical concepts of trade policy development and analysis: Evolution and modern challenges in the context of the international trading system transformation

Koval

Trofimenko²

2020

SUJES

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The study of the trade policy concepts within a framework of hyperglobalization and global regulation system transformation requires new theoretical and methodological approaches. On the one hand, trade policy design and implementation is closely linked to a wide range of issues from e-commerce to gender inequality. On the other hand, the newest trade theory focuses on studying the companies' export activities, their participation in global value chains and their trade costs. In addition, research methodology for various quantitative methods has grown significantly. An increasing number of papers deal with the analysis of specific trade policy instruments. However, despite the expanding number of studies on international trade and trade policy in the economic, political and legal fields, the interdisciplinary approach for a deeper understanding of the impact of specific measures on the countries socio-economic development has not yet been developed. The paper presents an integrative review of studies in leading foreign and Russian journals on international trade, as well as a comparative analysis of the identified research areas.

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“…Chaudoin and Urpelainen (2013), although also stressing the ambiguous role of interest groups in either strengthening or dampening international cooperation, base their analysis on the assumption of a single interest group in each country and without tracking the interdependence as transmitted by trade flows, as we do. Same applies to Rönnbäck (2014), who presents case-study evidence according to which the role of interest groups might differ from what their stake suggest (and what is traditionally assumed in the protection-for-sale approach). Having said that, these studies provide an additional argument backing our introduction of a leverage parameter -apart from the stakes interest groups might have.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tit-for-tat in trade policies: nothing but a fest for vested interests?

Dluhosch

2015

Journal of Institutional Economics

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Tit-for-tat (TFT) in trade policies is a common practice. It is even enshrined in Article 22.4 of the WTO's dispute settlement process within multilateral trade integration. As such, it is a well-recognized means for promoting cooperation and for enforcing compliance with a common set of rules or institutions. However, there is equally widespread concern that a strategy of TFT degenerates into a prisoner's dilemma, in particular because of special interests ill-using it as a springboard for advancing protectionist measures and beggar-thy-neighbor policies. This paper provides a novel evolutionary perspective on TFT in trade policy regimes in that it tracks the role of special interests by parameterizing their leverage on strategies. Doing so, it provides new insights on the political economy of TFT in international institutions. Accordingly, the set of parameters for which a prisoner's dilemma emerges shrinks rather than widens, even with powerful domestic interest groups sharing a stake in protection.

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Interest-group lobbying for free trade: An empirical case study of international trade policy formation

Cited by 13 publications

References 18 publications

What Do Trade Agreements Really Do?

What Do Trade Agreements Really Do?

Theoretical concepts of trade policy development and analysis: Evolution and modern challenges in the context of the international trading system transformation

Tit-for-tat in trade policies: nothing but a fest for vested interests?

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