Economics, security, and individual-level preferences for trade agreements

Abstract

Empirical research on the determinants of individual-level support for trade liberalization has focused almost entirely on the economic effects of trade. Yet, international relations scholarship has long recognized that commerce also has a variety of security implications. This paper explores if and when security considerations influence individual attitudes toward trade. In this study, we ask two questions: First, to what extent do expectations about the security implications of trade affect individual-level attitudes toward trade agreements? Second, does the introduction of security concerns into the discussion of trade agreements influence how heavily individuals weigh their economic costs and benefits? We employ an original experiment embedded in a conjoint survey to investigate the relative impact of a variety of economic and security considerations on respondents' support for trade. Our findings suggest that security information matters and undermines the appeal of some, though not all, economic arguments for trade liberalization among our respondents.

Do Regional Trade Agreements Enhance International Tourism Flows? Evidence from a Cross-Country Analysis

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Bean Counters: The Effect of Soy Tariffs on Change in Republican Vote Share between the 2016 and 2018 Elections

“…As a result of these structural changes in the US economy, a host of other political issues with larger and less splintered support bases simply overshadowed trade policy, allowing politicians and economic elites to take advantage of the resulting lack of accountability and shape more liberal trade policies than would be supported by the general public (Guisinger, 2017). A third perspective, known as the sociotropic explanation, posits that average voters are generally unable to correctly infer the consequences of specic trade policies on their individual income (Kono, 2006;Rho and Tomz, 2017), and instead rely on easy-to-acces information about the state of the local and national economy from the media, elite discourse, or organizations like the AARP (DiGiuseppe and Kleinberg, 2018;Manseld and Mutz, 2009).…”

Elite cueing and attitudes towards trade agreements: the case of TTIP

“…This is in marked contrast to past bilateral trade agreements that mostly received only limited media coverage and were hardly contested in public. Researchers on public attitudes towards trade policy have struggled to explain this opposition relying on the so far predominant theories that assume that citizens rationally weigh the economic costs and benefits from such agreements (e.g., O'Rourke and Sinnott, 2001;Scheve and Slaughter, 2001;Baker, 2003;Mayda and Rodrik, 2005;DiGiuseppe and Kleinberg, 2019). What, then, explains individual attitudes towards trade agreements, and TTIP more specifically?…”