University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Predictors of Protectionism: The Impacts of End-Use Category Imports and Exports on Protectionist Policy Announcement

Vuruputoor, Adithya; Sampathkumaran, Bhargav

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/133191

Description

Title
Predictors of Protectionism: The Impacts of End-Use Category Imports and Exports on Protectionist Policy Announcement
Author(s)
  • Vuruputoor, Adithya
  • Sampathkumaran, Bhargav
Issue Date
2026-05-08
Keyword(s)
  • Protectionism
  • International Trade
  • Trade
  • Tariffs
  • Non-Tariff Barriers
  • Non-Tariff Measures
  • End-Use Goods
  • Goods
Date of Ingest
2026-05-08T17:49:59-05:00
Geographic Coverage
United States of America
Abstract
We address the question of what factors in the US’s trade balance in goods predict increased monthly announcements of protectionist trade policies, including tariffs and non-tariff adjustments. Our study utilizes compiled data on the monthly counts of protectionist measures by the US Federal Government (January 2009 to December 2023), and monthly import, export, and balance levels for goods of various end-use categories as predictors. Regression models are built using Ordinary Least Squares, Best Subset Selection, Ridge Regression, and LASSO to predict monthly counts of announced protectionist measures at one-, two-, and three-month lags. We interpret results and draw conclusions based on the model-lag combination that achieves the best performance (determined by minimizing test root mean squared error) and the predictors included. We find that predicting based on a three-month lag produces the lowest mean squared error across all methods, Best Subset Selection has the best performance of the four methods, and export quantities for capital goods and for industrial supplies are the predictors used in the model generated with this method. While Exports of Capital Goods is associated with protectionist measure announcement in the expected direction (negative), Exports of Industrial Supplies has a positive relation with the announcement of protectionist policies three months later, which warrants further research.
Type of Resource
text
Genre of Resource
working paper
Language
eng
Copyright and License Information
  • Adithya Vuruputoor
  • Bhargav Sampathkumaran

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