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Do Gatt Rules Help Governments Make Domestic Commitments?
Author(s) -
Staiger R. W.,
Tabellini G.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
economics and politics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1468-0343
pISSN - 0954-1985
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0343.00055
Subject(s) - negotiation , government (linguistics) , tariff , international trade , business , international economics , rules of origin , commercial policy , economics , political science , law , philosophy , linguistics
We investigate empirically whether GATT rules may have helped the US government make trade policy commitments to its private sector. We study choices under two distinct environments. One environment is the determination of sectoral exclusions in the Tokyo Round of GATT negotiations. The other is the determination of tariff responses under GATT’s escape clause. In each environment the US government was faced with a similar decision, but only in the former environment did GATT rules serve as a potential commitment device. Comparing decisions made across these two environments, we find evidence that GATT rules did help the US government make domestic trade policy commitments that it could not have made in the absence of these rules.