Retaliatory Disagreement Point with Asymmetric Countries: Evidence from European Wine Sector During Enlargement

Abstract

The vector space model facilitates a very useful representation of the strategic interaction in trade because it is possible to incorporate both symmetric and asymmetric features of the players. This paper characterizes the Nash solution of the non-cooperative international trade game in the orthogonal vector space. We have used the standard properties of the Nash solution to determine if the non-cooperative action-reaction trade policy space should be written in terms of 'import-import' or 'import-export' quotas as strongest punishment. The trade policy space defined by import-export' quotas is not a Nash solution of the non-cooperative game but an improvement in the disagreement set. We show the positive correlation between import and export quotas using data on trade relations between EU-15, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria for wine sector during 1995-2005. In our model the outcome of the non-cooperative trade is autarky. Retaliation is played when countries restrict their imports to one third of the national optimum.