Uncertainty and Trade Agreements
研究了贸易协定通过降低贸易政策不确定性带来收益的条件，发现经济越开放、出口供给弹性越低、经济越专业化时越可能获益，且随着贸易成本下降，降低关税不确定性的收益比降低平均关税更重要。
We explore conditions under which trade agreements can provide gains by reducing trade policy uncertainty. Given the degree of income risk aversion, this is more likely when economies are more open, export supply elasticities are lower, and economies more specialized. Governments have stronger incentives to sign trade agreements when the trading environment is more uncertain. As exogenous trade costs decline, the gains from reducing tariff uncertainty become more important relative to reducing average tariff levels. We also develop a simple “sufficient statistic” approach to quantify the gains from managing trade policy uncertainty, and examine the impact of ex ante investments on such gains.