2024/10/24 【Oct. 24(US)/25(Taiwan)】 Heterogeneous Districts, Interests, and Trade Policy
Heterogeneous Districts, Interests, and Trade Policy
by Dr. Pablo M. Pinto (University of Houston)
Dr. Pablo M. Pinto
Pablo M. Pinto is a Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Public Policy at the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs. Pinto’s areas of expertise are international and comparative political economy, comparative politics, and quantitative methods. Pinto served as UH Energy Faculty Fellow, non-resident Scholar in the Latin America Initiative of the Baker Institute at Rice University, and co-editor of the journal Economics & Politics. He holds an M.A. from Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan, and a Ph.D. in Political Science and International Affairs from the University of California, San Diego. He received a Law Degree from Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina. Prior to joining the University of Houston in 2014, Pinto was a member of the faculty of Columbia University. He taught at the Escuela Nacional de Gobierno in his native Argentina, and the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, where he founded and directed the Department for Asia-Pacific Studies. He also worked as Chief Counsel for Toyota Argentina.
Description：
Representation of the interests of Congressional districts with heterogeneous trade policy preferences is missing from political economy models of trade protection. We develop a model that allows us to characterize the (unobserved) district-level demand for protection and show how these district level preferences may be aggregated into national tariffs. Moreover, in our model, export interests can become a force countering domestic protectionism. Using 2002 data from the U.S. mapped at the Congressional district level, we use the model’s predictions to estimate welfare weights implied by tariff and non-tariff measures. This supply-side explanation for trade policy reveals a pattern of winners and losers in Congressional districts, providing fresh insights, such as the recent diminished role of manufacturing exporters, into the current backlash against globalization.