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Regulatory Entry Barriers, Rent Shifting and the Home Market Effect

Review of International Economics

Published online on

Abstract

This paper introduces regulatory entry barriers in a model of the home market effect. The entry barriers generate local rents that have unexpected but significant implications. First, the home market effect is magnified. Second, when countries are sufficiently unequal in size and rents are sufficiently large, symmetric reductions in trade costs reduce welfare in the small country. Third, entry barriers increase the large country's market size and, surprisingly, can increase its welfare. Fourth, a unilateral increase in trade protection shifts foreign rents to the home country. This rent‐shifting effect amplifies the standard production relocation motive for trade policy intervention.