Repeated games and international trade cooperation on non-tariff trade barrier

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K03690
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Economic policy
• Research Institution: Wakayama University
• Principal Investigator: Ohta Katsunori 和歌山大学, 経済学部, 准教授 (60403218)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 非関税障壁 / セーフガード / 繰り返しゲーム / 不完全観測 / 環境協定

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study considers international cooperation between large countries when we take unobservable trade barriers into consideration. For this purpose, this study uses infinitely repeated games with imperfect public monitoring. In the context of two-country two-commodity models, we can use terms-of-trade as a public signal. Terms-of-trade has a fine property for statistical distinguishability of deviations, because the deviation from an agreement improves the terms-of-trade for the deviator, whereas it changes the opponents terms-of-trade for the worse. We construct a simple asymmetric strategy based on terms-of-trade, which we call safeguard strategy. This study examines the condition that safeguards strategy becomes equilibrium.
This study also considers international cooperation by asymmetric strategies in the context of international environmental agreements.

Free Research Field

国際経済学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

貿易摩擦に代表される国際協調が必要とされる問題に対して、非対称戦略の重要性とその設計方法について、この研究は示唆を持つ。非関税障壁の研究については、お互いに相手国のセーフガード発動を認める譲り合いが貿易摩擦回避に有効であることを示した点に意義があると考える。さらに、セーフガードが輸入需要の価格弾力性が小さい財に有効であることを示した点も意義があると考える。