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Stable Tariffs and Retaliations *
Author(s) -
Oladi Reza
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
review of international economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.513
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1467-9396
pISSN - 0965-7576
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9396.2005.00499.x
Subject(s) - tariff , economics , outcome (game theory) , commodity , nash equilibrium , negotiation , context (archaeology) , free trade , microeconomics , international economics , international trade , mathematical economics , market economy , paleontology , political science , law , biology
Abstract A two‐country, two‐commodity model of trade is considered to reformulate the tariff retaliations. It is known that tariff retaliations lead to a Nash‐equilibrium, a non‐free‐trade outcome. However, the negotiation process underlying the Nash equilibrium does not capture the notion of retaliation properly. We use the “contingent threat situation” to reformulate tariff retaliations. In this context, we show that the free trade is a stable outcome. More surprisingly, this interesting result is also valid for the “Johnson case,” where one country is better off under the tariff‐ridden Nash equilibrium compared to free trade.