Value of WTO Trade Agreements in a New Keynesian Model

We revisit the question of the quantitative benefits of WTO trade agreements in a setup that is non-standard from the traditional trade policy point of view. We show that in a New Keynesian model, unilateral trade liberalization reduces welfare due to terms-of-trade deterioration, creating an incent...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ganelli, Giovanni
Other Authors: Tervala, Juha
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2015
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary:We revisit the question of the quantitative benefits of WTO trade agreements in a setup that is non-standard from the traditional trade policy point of view. We show that in a New Keynesian model, unilateral trade liberalization reduces welfare due to terms-of-trade deterioration, creating an incentive for a trade agreement. For realistic parameter values, the value of an agreement, which cuts tariffs by one percentage point, is 0.5% to 2% of consumption, much larger than in trade models. The intuition for this result hinges on some New Keynesian features of our framework, such as imperfect competition and endogenous labor supply
Physical Description:35 pages
ISBN:9781498372671