Year: 2018
Type: report
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.
DOI: 10.3386/w25348
Authors: Gene Grossman, Elhanan Helpman
Language: English
Topic: Global trade and economics
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2895627039