Excerpt

Firms’ Preferences over Multidimensional Trade Policies: Global Production Chains, Investment Protection and Dispute Settlement Mechanisms. Dustin Tingley, April 16, 2016, Paper. "In addition to the conventional focus on market access, recent trade agreements have included investment protection, dispute settlement mechanisms, and escape clauses that enhance flexibility. We argue that preferences over these newly salient dimensions of trade policy will vary by firm, not by industry, and that a firm’s preferences will depend on its insertion into global production networks. To estimate a firm’s preferences over multiple policy dimensions, we conduct a conjoint experiment on firms in Costa Rica, a middle-income democracy in the developing world. We find that investment protection is the most salient trade policy dimension for firms who are most deeply integrated into global production networks. In addition, strong dispute settlement procedures are most valued by exporters who are not central to global supply networks. Furthermore, we find few differences across industries, thus challenging the conventional focus on inter-industry distinctions in the trade policy literature." Link