Rent-Seeking and Trade Policy: An Industry Approach

The model of rent-seeking presented in this paper is consistent with the observation that labor and management in an industry almost always adopt the same position concerning the desirability of import protection versus trade liberalization. The paper also discusses the size of the returns to rent-seeking relative to the costs of lobbying, factors influencing the type of government assistance sought by an industry, and ways in which the benefits and costs of protection can be made more widely known to both the industries concerned and the general public.