Premium
Protection for Sale and Trade Liberalization: an Empirical Investigation
Author(s) -
McCalman Phillip
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
review of international economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.513
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1467-9396
pISSN - 0965-7576
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9396.2004.00432.x
Subject(s) - economics , free trade , international economics , grossman , liberalization , welfare , valuation (finance) , international trade , population , market economy , keynesian economics , demography , finance , sociology
The paper uses Grossman and Helpman's “protection for sale” model (1994) to analyze the process of trade liberalization that has occurred in Australia. First, this paper verifies that the predictions of the “protection for sale” model are consistent with the data. Then, it analyzes the endogenous dimension of the Australian experience of trade liberalization. The estimated structural parameters imply that the process of trade liberalization has been driven by increases in both the fraction of the voting population represented by lobbies, and the government's relative valuation of welfare (the former playing the more prominent role).