This paper analyses the economic effects of different magnitudes of tariff cuts, different tariff cutting formulas, the implications of tariff capping as well as different numbers and width of tariff bands in the market access pillar of the Doha Round agricultural negotiations. The simulations are conducted with an extended version of the GTAP model and an extended version of the GTAP data base...

This paper introduces the concept of a steepest ascent tariff reform for a small open economy. By construction, it is locally optimal in that it yields the highest gain in utility of any feasible tariff reform vector of the same length. Accordingly, it provides a convenient benchmark for the evaluation of the welfare effectiveness of other tariff reform proposals. We develop the properties of t...

This paper develops a new model of a trade agreement that puts at center stage the competing interests between firms within a sector. Larger firms favor trade liberalization whereas smaller firms favor protection. Lobbying by firms for or against the agreement is modelled as an all-pay auction, thus incorporating the feature that binding contracts over contributions for policies cannot be writt...

This paper investigates the effects of a tariff reduction on the grain self-sufficiency and the sustainability of domestic grain production. We develop a theoretical model in which trade, tariff, and supply-demand equations are explicitly included, with the classification of food importing and exporting countries. Estimation results based on panel data for 150 countries over 17 years show that ...

This paper evaluates the opportunity and efficiency to introduce a two-part tariff to coordinate the location of power plants with lumpy transmission investments. Nodal pricing sends the short run component of such a two-part tariff and we study the case where the average participation tariff sends the long run one. We argue that this solution is helpful because the average participation tariff...

We consider optimal trade policy for a large country with private information. We show that the optimal tariff leads to a signaling equilibrium with higher tariffs and lower welfare than under complete information, whereas the optimal import quota replicates the complete information equilibrium and thus is superior to the tariff. We also show that, with the tariff, the country may be better off...

This paper aims to analyze tariff protection policies in the agricultural sector of developing countries. The agricultural tariff structure in developing countries is characterized by: i) high average tariffs, ii) the existence of tariff escalation, iii) dispersion of nominal tariffs across tariff lines, and iv) a wide gap between average nominal tariffs and import-weighted average tariffs. Con...

Mercosur has achieved important advances like the removal of intrabloc tariff and non-tariff barriers and the establishment of a common external tariff for most products. However, its ambitious plans to deepen the integration process comprising harmonisation of policies in areas like competition policy, government procurement, technical barriers and phytosanitary measures have not been implemen...

BACKGROUND Reliable data on the distribution of causes of death (COD) in a population are fundamental to good public health practice. In the absence of comprehensive medical certification of deaths, the only feasible way to collect essential mortality data is verbal autopsy (VA). The Tariff Method was developed by the Population Health Metrics Research Consortium (PHMRC) to ascertain COD from V...

This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization in terms of tariff cuts within the Eastern European enlargement on German and Austrian firm productivity. Unique matching of data from 1994 to 2003 suggests that tariff reductions raise parent firm productivity significantly. A ten percentage point decrease in tariff rates can lead to total factor productivity gains of up to 2 percent. The d...