Topic:Trade Retaliation:China versus Theories

Lecturer:Guanyi Li

Guanyi Li is Associate Professor (tenured) at University of Massachusetts Lowell. His research interests include international trade, economic geography, and economic history.It has been published in American Economic Journal:Economic Policy, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Urban Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. He has published several papers in journals such as Journal of Economic & Management Strategy.

Abstract:

Tit-for-tat trade retaliations have been scarce since the 1950s,which limits economists' understanding of trade wars. In this paper, we compare China's retaliation in the 2018-2019 US-China trade war against four tariff motives studied in the literature. Our comparative framework contrasts a factual retaliation with counterfactual retaliations that stem from distinct motives in product selection but otherwise remain observationally equivalent to the factual retaliation.This approach can (i)juxtapose welfare losses across alternative motives, (ii)identify motives of a factual retaliation, and (iii)estimate the theoretical lower bound of all alternative tariffs in a given tit-for-tat retaliation.

Time:3:30p.m,July 4th,2024

Venue:B438,Zhixin Building,Central Campus