Tariff Wars and Trade Deals with Costly Government.

The authors study a simple model of tariff wars and trade deals in which government revenue collection and disbursement uses resources. The introduction of costly governments leads to lower non-cooperative tariffs, the possibility that a less costly government may win a tariff war, and fully cooperative trade deals where countries lower tariffs but do not eliminate them, even with lump-sum taxes and transfers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]