Commercial policies, unilateral versus bilateral foreign ownership, and welfare

This paper examines how cross-border ownership and restrictions affect commercial policies optimally chosen by the government of an importing country. Focusing on import competition in an oligopoly market served by two local producers and a foreign firm, we study and compare two partial ownership arrangements without corporate control: unilateral ownership by the foreign firm over a local producer and bilateral ownership between the two entities. The main findings are as follows: (i) When foreign ownership is unilateral, the optimal trade and industrial policies are an import tariff and a production subsidy, respectively. (ii) When foreign ownership is bilateral, the trade policy can be an import subsidy, and the industrial policy is a production subsidy. These results differ from the benchmark equilibrium without ownership, under which the optimal policy mix consists of an import tariff and a production subsidy. (iii) Unilateral foreign ownership always reduces domestic welfare. However, bilateral foreign ownership can increase domestic welfare when local producers' cost disadvantages are substantially high. (iv) Considering the usual lump-sum transfer for a balanced budget, bilateral ownership entails a lower public burden than two other scenarios for the government to finance its strategic use of trade and industrial policies.