The DOI matches its Crossref record; 32 of the 32 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Optimal Obfuscation: Democracy and Trade Policy Transparency
Abstract
A growing body of research shows that democracies have more liberal trade policies than do autocracies. I argue, in contrast, that democracy has contradictory effects on different types of trade policies because electoral competition generates more information about some than about others. It generates considerable information about policies whose effects on consumer welfare are easy to explain to voters, but less information about policies whose effects are more complex. By increasing the transparency of some policies relative to others, democracy induces politicians to reduce transparent trade barriers but also to replace them with less transparent ones. I test this hypothesis by examining the impact of democracy on tariffs, “core” nontariff barriers (NTBs) such as quotas, and “quality” NTBs such as product standards in 75 countries in the 1990s. I find that democracy leads to lower tariffs, higher core NTBs, and even higher quality NTBs. I conclude that democracy promotes “optimal obfuscation” that allows politicians to protect their markets while maintaining a veneer of liberalization.
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Cites
Frankel, J. A., & Romer, D. (1999) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.89.3.379 · Cited by 5,384
Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration
Sachs, J. D., Warner, A., Aslund, A., & Fischer, S. (1995) · Brookings Papers on Economic Activity · doi:10.2307/2534573 · Cited by 4,950
The Logic of Political Survival
Bueno de Mesquita, B., Smith, A., Siverson, R. M., & Morrow, J. D. (2003) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/4292.001.0001 · Cited by 4,217 · cited 3×
“We must therefore question the conventional wisdom that democracy promotes policy transparency (Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003; Rosendorff and Vreeland 2004).”
BackgroundA Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence
Becker, G. S. (1983) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.2307/1886017 · Cited by 4,117
Grossman, G. M., & Helpman, E. (2008) · 40 Years of Research on Rent Seeking 2 · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-79247-5_7 · Cited by 3,302
Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic's Guide to the Cross-National Evidence
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Mapping Policy Preferences: Estimates for Parties, Electors, and Governments 1945-1998
Budge, I., Klingemann, H., Volkens, A., Bara, J. L., & Tanenbaum, E. (2001) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 1,508
Finzi, R. (2006) · Cited by 1,439
Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic's Guide to the Cross-National Evidence
Rodríguez, F. R., Rodrik, D., & Rodriguez, F. (2000) · NBER Macroeconomics Annual · doi:10.1162/08893360052390383 · Cited by 1,188
Dynamic Models for Dynamic Theories: The Ins and Outs of Lagged Dependent Variables
Keele, L., & Kelly, N. J. (2006) · Political Analysis · doi:10.1093/pan/mpj006 · Cited by 926
Cited by
Political Economy of Public Policies: Insights from Distortions to Agricultural and Food Markets
Anderson, K., Rausser, G., & Swinnen, J. (2013) · Journal of Economic Literature · doi:10.1257/jel.51.2.423 · Cited by 298
HANKLA, C. R., & KUTHY, D. (2013) · International Studies Quarterly · doi:10.1111/j.1468-2478.2012.00753.x · Cited by 61
Gastinger, M., & Dür, A. (2026) · Review of International Political Economy · doi:10.1080/09692290.2026.2656366 · Cited by 1
Metadata
- Authors
- KONO, D. Y.
- Venue
- American Political Science Review
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2006-08
- Volume
- 100
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 369-384
- ISSN
- 0003-0554 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-5943
- OpenAlex
- W2136714443
- Cited by
- 417
- References
- 32
- FWCI
- 18.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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