scholarly journals Support for Free Trade: Self-Interest, Sociotropic Politics, and Out-Group Anxiety

2009 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward D. Mansfield ◽  
Diana C. Mutz
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
Factor Endowments ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
Trade Preferences ◽  
Foreign Commerce ◽  
Mass Attitudes ◽  
The U.S

AbstractAlthough it is widely acknowledged that an understanding of mass attitudes about trade is crucial to the political economy of foreign commerce, only a handful of studies have addressed this topic. These studies have focused largely on testing two models, both of which emphasize that trade preferences are shaped by how trade affects an individual's income. The factor endowments or Heckscher-Ohlin model posits that these preferences are affected primarily by a person's skills. The specific factors or Ricardo-Viner model posits that trade preferences depend on the industry in which a person works. We find little support for either of these models using two representative national surveys of Americans. The only potential exception involves the effects of education. Initial tests indicate that educational attainment and support for open trade are directly related, which is often interpreted as support for the Heckscher-Ohlin model. However, further analysis reveals that education's effects are less representative of skill than of individuals' anxieties about involvement with out-groups in their own country and beyond. Furthermore, we find strong evidence that trade attitudes are guided less by material self-interest than by perceptions of how the U.S. economy as a whole is affected by trade.

Why Don't Trade Preferences Reflect Economic Self-Interest?

2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (S1) ◽  
pp. S85-S108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sungmin Rho ◽  
Michael Tomz
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Distributional Cues ◽  
Trade Preferences ◽  
Opposing Effects ◽  
Personal Interests

AbstractThe dominant approach to the study of international political economy assumes that the policy preferences of individuals and groups reflect economic self-interest. Recent research has called this assumption into question by suggesting that voters do not have economically self-interested preferences about trade policy. We investigate one potential explanation for this puzzling finding: economic ignorance. We show that most voters do not understand the economic consequences of protectionism. We then use experiments to study how voters would respond if they had more information about how trade barriers affect the distribution of income. We find that distributional cues generate two opposing effects: they make people more likely to express self-serving policy preferences, but they also make people more sensitive to the interests of others. In our study both reactions were evident, but selfish responses outweighed altruistic ones. Thus, if people knew more about the distributional effects of trade, the correlation between personal interests and policy preferences would tighten. By showing how the explanatory power of economic self-interest depends on beliefs about causality, this research provides a foundation for more realistic, behaviorally informed theories of international political economy.

scholarly journals The Political Economy of the U.S. Mortgage Default Crisis

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Atif Mian ◽  
Amir Sufi ◽  
Francesco Trebbi
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mortgage Default ◽  
The U.S

Health Care Public Sector Share and the U.S. Life Expectancy Lag: A Country-level Longitudinal Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan M. Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Political ◽  
Life Expectancy At Birth ◽  
Political Economy Of Health ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

Growing research on the political economy of health has begun to emphasize sociopolitical influences on cross-national differences in population health above and beyond economic growth. While this research investigates the impact of overall public health spending as a share of GDP (“health care effort”), it has for the most part overlooked the distribution of health care spending across the public and private spheres (“public sector share”). I evaluate the relative contributions of health care effort, public sector share, and GDP to the large and growing disadvantage in U.S. life expectancy at birth relative to peer nations. I do so using fixed effects models with data from 16 wealthy democratic nations between 1960 and 2010. Results indicate that public sector share has a beneficial effect on longevity net of the effect of health care effort and that this effect is nonlinear, decreasing in magnitude as levels rise. Moreover, public sector share is a more powerful predictor of life expectancy at birth than GDP per capita. This study contributes to discussions around the political economy of health, the growth consensus, and the American lag in life expectancy. Policy implications vis-à-vis the U.S. Affordable Care Act are discussed.

scholarly journals The Political Economy of Agricultural Trade Negotiations on the Uruguay Round of MTN: Can the U.S. and European Community Reach an Acceptable Compromise in the GATT?

1992 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen C.W. Ames
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
European Community ◽  
Agricultural Policy ◽  
Uruguay Round ◽  
Agricultural Trade ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Trade Negotiations ◽  
The Political ◽  
The U.S

AbstractA model of the political economy of agricultural policy formulation was used to analyze the current stalemate in the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations. The combination of social welfare increasing and transferring policies in the European Community and the U.S. is one of the primary causes of the deadlock in trade negotiations. The Community's farm policy of high internal price supports, limited market access, and export subsidies represents short-term equilibria in the market for social-welfare policies which distribute benefits to producers at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. Thus, the opportunity for internal reform of the CAP leading to a compromise in the GATT negotiations is problematic at best. However, international commitments to agricultural policy reform will force the Community to make concessions which will bring equivalent change in domestic policy.

The Political Economy of Trade Policy

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 119-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Trade Policy ◽  
Machine Tools ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Social Concerns

International trade seems to be a subject where the advice of economists is routinely disregarded. Economists are nearly unanimous in their general opposition to protectionism, but the increase in U.S. protection in recent years in such sectors as automobiles, steel, textiles and apparel, machine tools, footwear and semiconductors demonstrates that economists lack political influence on trade policy. Two broad approaches have been developed to analyze the political economics of trade policy and the processes that generate protectionism. One approach emphasizes the economic self-interest of the political participants, while the other stresses the importance of the broad social concerns of voters and public officials. This paper outlines the nature of the two approaches, indicating how they can explain the above anomalies and other trade policy behavior, and concludes with observations about integrating the two frameworks, conducting further research, and making policy based on the analysis.

The Political Economy of Trade Preferences

2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Devault
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Trade Preferences

Response to Graciana del Castillo's review of After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy

2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 306-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Coyne
Keyword(s):  
Free Trade ◽  
Preventive Measure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Major Shortcoming ◽  
Default Position ◽  
Trade Preferences ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Primary Strategy

I would like to thank Graciana del Castillo for her remarks regarding After War. I will focus my response on what del Castillo finds to be the major shortcoming of my book—the main policy implication. In After War, I conclude that current approaches to reconstruction, which typically rely on military occupation, are more likely to fail than to succeed. This outcome is not due to a lack of planning, effort, or political will, but is instead is the result of the array of incentives and constraints limiting what occupiers and policymakers can rationally design and implement in foreign societies. In considering alternative strategies for exporting the ideas, values, and beliefs underpinning liberal democracy, I argue that the U.S. should assume a default position of military non-intervention and free trade (unilateral if necessary). Del Castillo is sympathetic to this position as a “preventive measure,” but does not seem convinced of its suitability as a primary strategy. For example, she points out that offering trade preferences to the Taliban following 9/11 would hardly have brought liberalism to Afghanistan. I agree. However, I do not think this point undercuts my argument for a default position of free trade and non-intervention. Let me clarify why I believe this to be the case.

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