In practice, however, countries that restrict trade with import quotas rarely do
so by selling the import licenses. For example, the U.S. government has at times
pressured Japan to “voluntarily” limit the sale of Japanese cars in the United
States. In this case, the Japanese government allocates the import licenses to Japanese
firms, and the surplus from these licenses (area E'
E'') accrues to those firms.
This kind of import quota is, from the standpoint of U.S. welfare, strictly worse
than a U.S. tariff on imported cars. Both a tariff and an import quota raise prices,
restrict trade, and cause deadweight losses, but at least the tariff produces revenue
for the U.S. government rather than for Japanese auto companies.