DP10687 Coercive Trade Policy

Author(s):	Vincent Anesi, Giovanni Facchini
Publication Date:	July 2015
Keyword(s):	Dispute Settlement, GATT, Political Economy, WTO
JEL(s):	F12, F16, L11
Programme Areas:	International Trade and Regional Economics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=10687

Empirical evidence suggests trade coercion exercised unilaterally is significantly less likely to induce concessions than coercion exercised through an international organization. In this paper we build a two-country model of coercion that can provide a rationale for this finding, and for how ``weak'' international institutions might be effective, even if their rulings cannot be directly enforced. In particular we show that if coercion is unilateral, the country requesting the policy change will demand a concession so substantial to make it unacceptable to its partner, and a trade war will ensue. If the parties can instead commit to an international organization (IO), compliance is more likely, because the potential IO ruling places a cap on the Foreign government's incentives to signal its resolve.