Import Demand Elasticities And Trade Distorsions

Download or read book Import Demand Elasticities and Trade Distortions written by Hiau Looi Kee and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "To study the effects of tariffs on gross domestic product (GDP), one needs import demand elasticities at the tariff line level that are consistent with GDP maximization. These do not exist. Kee, Nicita, and Olarreaga modify Kohli's (1991) GDP function approach to estimate demand elasticities for 4,625 imported goods in 117 countries. Following Anderson and Neary (1992, 1994) and Feenstra (1995), they use these estimates to construct theoretically sound trade restrictiveness indices and GDP losses associated with existing tariff structures. Countries are revealed to be 30 percent more restrictive than their simple or import-weighted average tariffs would suggest. Thus, distortion is nontrivial. GDP losses are largest in China, Germany, India, Mexico, and the United States"--Abstract.