Imposing tariff or implementing subsidy?

Abstract

Purpose In the context of the trade war in full swing, the global supply chain systems have experienced a serious shock and become very vulnerable. The purpose of this paper is to explore the intertwining effects between the export-supporting subsidy policy and the import-deterring tariff policy to develop better insights for trade policy-making under the intra-industry-trade (IIT) conflicts. The research results may provide the trade policy makers and international businesses with better insights in making rational trade policy and business decisions. Design/methodology/approach Two-stage game-/bargaining-theoretical models for the dual competing international supply chains with a unilateral/bilateral tariff imposing or subsidy implementing under six different scenarios of IIT conflict are developed, analyzed and compared. On this basis, the corresponding numerical analyses are conducted to assess the impact of the tariff and subsidy policies and derive the trade policy implications and business insights. Findings The research results indicate that: (1) the bilateral subsidy implementing from both governments is the best policy for all stakeholders in two countries, which would lead to the highest profits, social welfare and consumer surplus than those of the other scenarios; (2) the bilateral tariff imposing of both governments is the worst policy for all stakeholders in two countries, which would lead to the lowest profits, social welfare and consumer surplus than those of the other scenarios; (3) the fair trade scenario without tariff imposing and subsidy implementing turns out to be the second-best trade policy for the governments. Under the World Trade Organization rule and fair-trade principles, the bilateral subsidy policy is not allowed in most of the cases. Thus, adopting a fair-trade policy may be the most appropriate trade policy for two trading countries. Originality/value The modeling approach developed for this study is original and innovative due to the following characteristics. First, based on three trade policy alternatives – fair trade, tariff imposing and subsidy implementing – of two generic governments under IIT conflict, nine different combinations of three policy alternatives are defined. Second, excluding the symmetrical combinations, six IIT conflict scenarios under various tariff/subsidy policy pairs ranging from no conflict to high conflict are assumed for two dual competing international supply chains. Third, a novel two-stage game-/bargaining-theoretical modeling approach is applied to investigate the optimal/equilibrium decisions regarding pricing, ordering quantity and their critical economic outcomes for all possible trade policy scenarios. Fourth, this study lays down a research foundation for the future trade conflict study using a game-theoretical modeling approach.