Endogenous Sequencing of Tariff Decisions

Abstract

This paper examines the timing of echoing antidumping cases. We develop a two-stage, three-period model in which two competing importers can choose to select their taris with respect to an exporting country in one of two periods. We assume that governments are politically motivated regarding their import-competing industries. We further assume that the degree of their political motivation, captured by a political-economy parameter, is private information. We …nd that the countries endoge- nously choose to pick their taris sequentially if and only if their political- economy parameters dier in relation to a common critical threshold.