@article{60b71ebc81a44087adafc937cafaf6f3,
title = "Suspiciously timed trade disputes",
abstract = "This paper shows that electoral incentives crucially affect the initiation of trade disputes. Focusing on WTO disputes filed by the United States during the 1995–2014 period, we find that U.S. presidents are more likely to initiate a dispute in the year preceding their re-election. Moreover, U.S. trade disputes are more likely to involve industries that are important in swing states. To explain these regularities, we develop a theoretical model in which re-election motives can lead an incumbent politician to file trade disputes to appeal to voters motivated by reciprocity.",
keywords = "Elections, Reciprocity, Trade disputes",
author = "Paola Conconi and DeRemer, {David R.} and Georg Kirchsteiger and Lorenzo Trimarchi and Maurizio Zanardi",
note = "Funding Information: We are grateful to Chad Bown, Meredith Crowley, Bal{\'a}zs Murak{\"o}zy, David Rietzke, and G{\'e}rard Roland for helpful discussions, and the Editor Giovanni Maggi and two anonymous referees for valuable comments. We thank participants at the 2014 European Trade Study Group, the 7th FIW Research Conference on International Economics, the Fall 2014 DISSETTLE Workshop, the 2015 MWIEG Spring meeting, the 2015 UECE Lisbon Meetings in Game Theory and Applications, the Budapest Workshop on Game Theory and Social Choice, the 2016 Royal Economic Society Conference, and seminars at ECARES, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Paris School of Economics, Newcastle Business School, Birmingham Business School, Universit{\`a} Bocconi, and University of Bielefeld. This paper is produced as part of the project “Dispute Settlement in Trade: Training in Law and Economics” (DISSETTLE), a Marie Curie Initial Training Networks (ITN) funded under the EU's Seventh Framework Programme, Grant Agreement No. FP7-PEOPLE-2010-ITN_264633. Funding from the F.R.S. - FNRS and the Hungarian Academy of Science's Lend{\"u}let Program (project entitled `Firms, Strategy and Performance') program is gratefully acknowledged. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016 Elsevier B.V.",
year = "2017",
month = mar,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1016/j.jinteco.2016.12.001",
language = "English",
volume = "105",
pages = "57--76",
journal = "Journal of International Economics",
issn = "0022-1996",
publisher = "Elsevier",
}