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Economic interests and voting on the omnibus trade bill of 1987

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Abstract

This paper presents an econometric analysis of the votes on five pivotal amendments to the omnibus foreign trade bills of the U.S. House and Senate in 1987. Probit estimation is used to identify the relationships between geographic variations in employment in trade-sensitive industries and congressional voting on changes in foreign trade policy procedures. The implied pattern of expected net benefits for the industries from the five amendments is highly consistent with qualitative evidence on the costs and benefits at stake. Two general conclusions stand out: (1) Procedural foreign trade policy proposals can have very specific beneficiaries. (2) Diffuse export interests can be influential in opposition to procedural protectionism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Pomona College, 425 N. College Avenue, 91711-6353, Claremont, CA

    Stephen V. Marks

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  1. Stephen V. Marks
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Additional information

I am grateful to William Dewald, William Kaempfer, Keith Maskus, Douglas Nelson, John Odell, Thomas Willett, and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments, and to The John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation for financial support.

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Marks, S.V. Economic interests and voting on the omnibus trade bill of 1987. Public Choice 75, 21–42 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01053879

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