Protectionism, competitiveness and business cycles: The Argentinean case

Congreso; Reunión Anual de la Asociación Argentina de Economía Política; 2020

Asociación Argentina de Economía Política

This paper uses quarterly available data for Argentina to estimate the impact of macroeconomic shocks and exchange rate movements on import protection policies over 1989?2016. While part of the empirical literature in this latitude is devoted to the analysis of the primary determinants of such protectionist measures, there is not any domestic effort linking the imposition of new import restrictions to macroeconomics shocks as I shall explore in this paper. This analysis is important because we can better address the relationship between business cycles, exchange rates and import restriction and capture the precise timing of any trade policy changes taking place during the cycles of the businesses