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A key obstacle to fundamental tariff reform in many developing countries is the revenue loss that it ultimately implies. This paper establishes a simple and practicable strategy for realizing the efficiency gains from tariff reform without reducing public revenues, showing that for a small open economy, a cut in tariffs combined with a point-for-point increase in domestic consumption taxes increases both welfare and public revenues. Increasingly stringent conditions are required, however, to ensure unambiguously beneficial outcomes from this reform strategy when allowance is made for such important features as nontradeable goods, intermediate inputs, and imperfect competition.
A key obstacle to fundamental tariff reform in many developing countries is the revenue loss that it ultimately implies. This paper establishes a simple and practicable strategy for realizing the efficiency gains from tariff reform without reducing public revenues, showing that for a small open economy, a cut in tariffs combined with a point-for-point increase in domestic consumption taxes increases both welfare and public revenues. Increasingly stringent conditions are required, however, to ensure unambiguously beneficial outcomes from this reform strategy when allowance is made for such important features as nontradeable goods, intermediate inputs, and imperfect competition.
Tariff reform for trade liberalization must be seen as part of a broader program of tax reform. Custom duties on imports should be geared chiefly to protection. Reductions in such duties to promote an outward- oriented development strategy should be offset by increases in sales/value- added taxes applied equally to imports and domestic production. That would maintain public revenues and avoid exacerbating macroeconomic dificulties.
This paper studies the welfare effects of coordinated domestic sales tax reform associated with a reduction of the import tariff under imperfect competition. We set up a simple oligopoly trading model where domestic and exporting firms compete in the home market. We show that, if the initial levels of import tariff and sales tax are positive, there always exist welfare-improving sales tax reforms. In some cases, a reduction of the sales tax accompanied by a reduction of the import tariff increases social welfare, whereas in other cases, raising the sales tax can increase social welfare.
Concerns over the possible loss of government revenue resulting from tariff reductions under trade liberalization have triggered many developing countries to opt for a strategy of raising destination-based consumption taxes on tradable goods. The first essay analyzes the welfare effects of a coordinated tariff reduction and domestic tax reform when the objective of a reforming country is to keep its government revenue unchanged. Assuming imperfect competition in an import-competing industry, we find that revenue-neutral reform involving tariff reduction and an increase in domestic tax rate may reduce domestic welfare under plausible assumptions. It also discusses the scenario in which the reforming country's objective is to keep domestic profit (or production) unchanged. We further identify the conditions under which a profit-neutral tariff and tax reform may be welfare-improving or welfare-deteriorating. The second essay uses a reciprocal-dumping model to examine the welfare effects of the Byrd Amendment (i.e., the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act, or CDSOA). It analyzes the differences in optimal tariffs set by the home and foreign governments when the home (i.e., the U.S.) government redistributes anti-dumping duties to its domestic firm under the new trade law, as compared to the traditional antidumping policy under which these duties are government revenues. We derive conditions under which the CDSOA may raise or lower the price of an import-competing good in the U.S. market. The results show that the CDSOA is an instrument of protectionism and strictly improves the home country welfare when markets are less competitive than in Cournot equilibrium. We find that under the same market characteristics, the new trade law strictly reduces foreign country welfare. The CDSOA's welfare effect is shown to be ambiguous, however, when markets are more competitive than Cournot. The third essay modifies the model presented in Essay 2 to allow for the scenario in which the foreign country strategically responds to the home country's CDSOA law by adopting similar trade law. The results show that the foreign country is able to enhance its national welfare when the import-competing markets are less competitive than in the Cournot equilibrium. We also discuss whether it is welfare-improving for the U.S. to voluntarily repeal the Byrd Amendment and restore the traditional antidumping policy, considering that, otherwise, its trading partner may also adopt the CDSOA law. We find that it is still in the best interest to the U.S. not to revoke the Byrd Amendment when markets are less competitive than Cournot. When markets are more competitive than Cournot, however, repealing the Amendment may turn out to be socially welfare-improving.
A selective review of the World Bank's recommendations on tariff reform suggests that there is scope to improve the design of these recommendations to reflect concerns regarding revenue as well as protection.