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Trade Policy and Antitrust: Do Consumers Matter to Legislators?
Author(s) -
Feinberg Robert M.,
Husted Thomas A.,
Reynolds Kara M.
Publication year - 2011
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.1467-9396.2011.00963.x
Subject(s) - legislator , enforcement , legislature , free trade , economics , commercial policy , liberalization , international economics , trade barrier , international trade , public economics , legislation , market economy , law , political science
We provide one of the first efforts to measure the importance of consumer preferences in legislators' trade policy decisions by estimating the degree to which the level of antitrust enforcement in the legislator's state impacts his or her vote on free trade agreements. To the extent that antitrust and trade liberalization are both viewed as pro‐consumer in nature, we would expect to see a positive relationship between antitrust enforcement in their legislative district and Congressional votes in support of trade liberalization. We find evidence suggesting that consumer preferences do play a role in legislative decisions on trade policy.