CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 41Global trade and economicsPolitical Philosophy and EthicsIncome, Poverty, and Inequality

Identity Politics and Trade Policy

Open access
Grossman, Gene, Helpman, Elhanan·2018·National Bureau of Economic Research
DOI 10.3386/w25348
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

We characterize trade policies that result from political competition when assessments of wellbeing include both material and psychosocial components.The material component reflects, as usual, satisfaction from consumption.Borrowing from social identity theory, we take the psychosocial component as combining the pride and self-esteem an individual draws from the status of groups with which she identifies and a dissonance cost she bears from identifying with those that are different from herself.In this framework, changes in social identification patterns that may result, for example, from increased income inequality or heightened racial and ethnic tensions, lead to pronounced changes in trade policy.We analyze the nature of these policy changes.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3386/w25348

Cites

1 of 1 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Intensified foreign competition may increase the political salience of racial and ethnic identities among voters, along with support for nationalist economic policies.

    “Intensified foreign competition (or other adverse shocks) may thus increase the political salience of racial and ethnic identities among voters, along with support for nationalist economic policies.”

    From Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure (2020) · cites this paper as Grossman and Helpman 2018

    The Conclusion (section 8; page unavailable) says globalization can widen income inequality, prompting a class-based populist shift and greater demand for protectionism. The Introduction (section 1; page unavailable) separately finds that heightened racial or ethnic salience can produce higher tariffs under certain conditions. The paper does not say that intensified foreign competition increases the salience of racial or ethnic identities; the claim joins two distinct pathways. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Grossman and Helpman (2018) shows how adverse economic shocks, due to globalization, may precipitate both a psychological response that strengthens one's identification with a particular social group and a material interest in stronger trade protection.

    “Introducing social-identity theory into an otherwise standard trade model, Grossman and Helpman (2018) shows how adverse economic shocks, due to, e.g., globalization, may precipitate both a psychological response that strengthens one's identification with a particular social group (e.g., the White working class) and a material interest in stronger trade protection.”

    From Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure (2020) · cites this paper as Grossman and Helpman 2018

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 25

  1. Akerlof, George A. and Kranton, Rachel, 2000, "Economics of Identity,"Quarterly Journal of Economics 115, 715-753.
  2. Akerlof, George A. and Kranton, Rachel, 2010, Identity Economics: How Our identities Shape our Work, Wages, and Well-Being, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  3. Autor, David H., Dorn, David and Hanson, Gordon H., 2013, "The China Syndrome: Lo- cal Labor Market E¤ects of Import Competition in the United States," American Economic Review 103, 2121-68.
  4. Charness, Gary and Rabin, Matthew, 2002, "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," Quarterly Journal of Economics 117, 817-69.
  5. Chen, Yan and Li, Sherry Xin, 2009, "Group Identity and Social Preferences," American Economic Review 99, 431-457.
  6. Dixit, Avinash and Londregan, J0hn, 1996, "The Determinants of Success of Special Interests in Redistributive Politics," Journal of Politics 58, 1132-1155.
  7. Fehr, Ernst and Schmidt, Klaus M., 1999, "A Theory of Fairness, Competition and Coopera- tion," Quarterly Journal of Economics 114, 817-68.
  8. Freeden, Michael, 2017, "After the Brexit Referendum: Revisiting Populism as an Ideology," Journal of Political Ideologies 22, 1-11.
  9. Grossman, Gene M. and Helpman, Elhanan, 1996, "Electoral Competition and Special Interest Politics," Review of Economic Studies 63, 265-286.
  10. Grossman, Gene M. and Helpman, Elhanan, 2001, Special Interest Politics, Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
  11. Grossman, Gene M. and Helpman, Elhanan, 2002, Interest Groups and Trade Policy, Prince- ton: Princeton University Press.
  12. Hogg, Michael A., 1996, "Intragroup Processes, Group Structure, and Social Identity,"in W.P. Robinson, ed., Social Groups and Identities: Developing the Legacy of Henri Tajfel, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
  13. Hogg, Michael A. and Abrams, Dominic, 1988, Social Identi…cations: A Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations and Group Processes, London: Routledge.
  14. Hogg, Michael A., Terry, Deborah J. and White, Katherine M., 1995, "A Tale of Two Theories: A Critical Comparison of Identity Theory with Social Identity Theory," Social Psychology Quarterly, 58, 255-69.
  15. Hogg, Michael A. and Hains, Sarah C., 1996, "Intergroup Relations and Group Solidarity: E¤ects of Group Identi…cation and Social Beliefs on Depersonalized Attraction," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70, 295-309.
  16. Jones, Ronald W., 1965, "The Structure of Simple General Equilibrium Models," Journal of Political Economy 73, 557-572.
  17. Mayer, Wolfgang, 1984, "Endogenous Tari¤ Formation,"American Economic Review 74, 970- 85.
  18. McGarty, Craig, Turner, John C., and Hogg, Michael A., 1992, "Group Polarization as Con- formity to the Prototypical Group Member," British Journal of Social Psychology 31, 1-19.
  19. Monroe, Kristen Renwick, James Hankin and Bukovchik Van Vechten, Renée, 2000, "The Psychological Foundations of Identity Politics," Annual Review of Political Science 3, 419- 447.
  20. Müller, Jan-Werner, 2016, What is Populism?, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  21. Mutz, Diana C., 2018, "Status Threat, Not Economic Hardship, Explains the 2016 Presidential Vote," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201718155; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1718155115. · DOI · Paper page
  22. Oliver, J. Eric and Rahn, Wendy M., 2016, "Rise of the Trumpenvolk: Populism in the 2016 Election," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 667, 189- 206.
  23. Shayo, Moses, 2009, "A Model of Social Identity with an Application to Political Economy: Nation, Class, and Redistribution," American Political Science Review 103(2), 147-174.
  24. Tajfel, Henri, 1981, Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology, Cam- bridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
  25. Turner, John C., Hogg, Michael A., Reicher, Stephen D., and Wetherell, Margaret S., 1987, Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorization Theory, Cambridge MA: Basil Black- well.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Grossman, G., & Helpman, E.
Affiliations
National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
Corresponding author
Grossman, Gene
Venue
National Bureau of Economic Research
Publisher
National Bureau of Economic Research
Published
2018-12
DOI
10.3386/w25348
OpenAlex
W2895627039
Cited by
41
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 2 · 2012: 1
Type
report
Language
en
Open access
Locations
National Bureau of Economic Research (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › General Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Global trade and economics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Philosophy and Ethics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
Keywords
identity politics, trade policy, social identity theory, political competition, psychosocial well-being, group status, self-esteem, social dissonance, income inequality

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review