Strategic Tariff Policy under Asymmetric Information

초록

This paper examines a country's strategic optimal tariff policy against a foreign firm with market power. That is, the purpose of the paper is, under asymmetric information, to reexamine the problem of optimal tariff policy against a foreign monopolist from another country's welfare standpoint. This is to extend the analysis of Brander and Spencer(1984) which is both analytic and elaborate. The incentive compatible tariff schedule is derived, and then policy implications are investigated. The main result is that, under incomplete information, the optimal tariff is elevated above its full-information counterpart in order to capture foreign rents. Moreover, it suggests that trade policies motivated by rent extraction are unlikely to be robust to the introduction of incomplete information. This research complements an existing literature on the strategic trade policy in terms of asymmetric information.

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