IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gii/giihei/heiwp12-2006.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A New Tariff Database for Selected Least Developed Countries

Author

Abstract

This paper presents a new hand-gathered database on tariff rates for 18 least developed countries and Korea at the 4-digit level in HS 1988 and SITC revision 2. The database contains one observation per country and per decade starting from the 1970s to 2000/2002. Over time, the tariff schemes of the LDCs follow a symmetric bell-shaped distribution with low rates in the 1970s, which are raised in the 1980s, and then lowered or kept constant in the 1990s and substantially lowered in 2000/02. The analysis in the paper shows that the LDCs have already lowered their average tariff rates to those levels considered ‘optimal’ by many economists and that they have not shifted the protection over time, keeping the highest rates on labor-intensive and on medium skill manufactures and the lowest rates on mineral products.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa Borgatti, 2004. "A New Tariff Database for Selected Least Developed Countries," IHEID Working Papers 12-2006, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies, revised Jun 2006.
    • Handle: RePEc:gii:giihei:heiwp12-2006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.graduateinstitute.ch/pdfs/Working_papers/HEIWP12-2006.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:rus:hseeco:121595 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. O'Rourke, Kevin H, 2000. "Tariffs and Growth in the Late 19th Century," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(463), pages 456-483, April.
    3. Vamvakidis, Athanasios, 2002. "How Robust Is the Growth-Openness Connection? Historical Evidence," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 57-80, March.
    4. Robert E. Baldwin, 2004. "Openness and Growth: What's the Empirical Relationship?," NBER Chapters, in: Challenges to Globalization: Analyzing the Economics, pages 499-521, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Rudiger Dornbusch, 1992. "The Case for Trade Liberalization in Developing Countries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 69-85, Winter.
    6. Francisco Rodríguez & Dani Rodrik, 2001. "Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic's Guide to the Cross-National Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000, Volume 15, pages 261-338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Baldwin, Richard, 2010. "Unilateral tariff liberalisation," CEPR Discussion Papers 8162, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Niclas Berggren & Henrik Jordahl, 2005. "Does free trade really reduce growth? Further testing using the economic freedom index," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 99-114, January.
    2. Dodzin, Sergei & Vamvakidis, Athanasios, 2004. "Trade and industrialization in developing economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 319-328, October.
    3. Stéphane BECUWE & Bertrand BLANCHETON, 2011. "Tariff growth paradox between 1850 and 1913: a critical survey (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2011-24, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    4. Astorga, Pablo, 2010. "A century of economic growth in Latin America," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 232-243, July.
    5. Josef Falkinger & Volker Grossmann, 2005. "Institutions and Development: The Interaction Between Trade Regime and Political System," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 231-272, September.
    6. Jakob B. Madsen, 2009. "Trade Barriers, Openness, and Economic Growth," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(2), pages 397-418, October.
    7. Sibylle H. Lehmann & Kevin H. O'Rourke, 2008. "The Structure of Protection and Growth in the Late 19th Century," NBER Working Papers 14493, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Kym Anderson, 2005. "On the Virtues of Multilateral Trade Negotiations," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(255), pages 414-438, December.
    9. Sudip Ranjan Basu, 2005. "Correlating Growth with Well-Being during Economic Reforms Evidence from India and China," Development and Comp Systems 0509010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Jakob B. Madsen, 2008. "Economic Growth, TFP Convergence and the World Export of Ideas: A Century of Evidence," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(1), pages 145-167, March.
    11. Rangan Gupta & Lardo Stander & Andrea Vaona, 2023. "Openness and growth: Is the relationship non‐linear?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 3071-3099, July.
    12. Iti Vyas, 2020. "Whether the Economic Growth of India is Trade Openness Led?," Eurasian Journal of Economics and Finance, Eurasian Publications, vol. 8(1), pages 38-53.
    13. Meissner, Christopher M., 2014. "Growth from Globalization? A View from the Very Long Run," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 8, pages 1033-1069, Elsevier.
    14. Tena Junguito, Antonio, 2008. "Bairoch revisited : tariff structure and growth in the late 19th century," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH wp08-04, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    15. Buch, Claudia M. & Toubal, Farid, 2009. "Openness and growth: The long shadow of the Berlin Wall," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 409-422, September.
    16. Alan M. Taylor, 2002. "Globalization, Trade, and Development: Some Lessons From History," NBER Working Papers 9326, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Stéphane Becuwe & Bertrand Blancheton, 2014. "The dispersion of customs tariffs in France between 1850 and 1913: Discrimination in trade policy," Research in Economic History, in: Research in Economic History, volume 30, pages 163-183, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    18. Anton Gerunov, 2014. "Openness and Growth : An Empirical Investigation on a Panel of Countries over the Period 1999–2009," Yearbook of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Sofia University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski - Bulgaria, vol. 12(1), pages 107-125, March.
    19. Bent, Peter H., 2020. "Recovery from financial crises in peripheral economies, 1870–1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    20. Nathaniel P. S. Cook & Jason C. Jones, 2021. "The African Growth and Opportunity Act and growth in sub‐Saharan Africa: A local projection approach," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 234-261, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tariff Rates; Protection; Commercial Policy; Least developed countries;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • C82 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data; Data Access

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gii:giihei:heiwp12-2006. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dorina Dobre (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ieheich.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.