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Putting the Lid on Lobbying: Tariff Structure and Long-Term Growth when Protection is for Sale

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  • Nathan Nunn
  • Daniel Trefler

Abstract

It has long been recognized that a country's tariffs are the endogenous outcome of a rent-seeking game whose equilibrium reflects national institutions. Thus, the structure of tariffs across industries provides insights into how institutions, as reflected in tariff policies, affect long-term growth. We start with the commonplace perception among politicians that protection of skill-intensive industries generates a growth-enhancing externality. Modifying the Grossman-Helpman protection for sale model to allow for this, we make two predictions. First, a country with good institutions will tolerate high average tariffs provided tariffs are biased towards skill-intensive industries. Second, there need not be any relationship between average tariffs and good institutions. Using data for 17 manufacturing industries in 59 countries over approximately 25 years, we find that average tariffs are uncorrelated with output growth and that the skill-bias of tariff structure is positively correlated with output growth. We interpret this to mean that countries grow faster if they are able and willing to put a lid on the rent-seeking behaviour of special interest lobby groups. We show that our results are not compatible with explanations that appeal to (1) externalities per se, (2) initial industrial structure that is skewed towards skill-intensive industries, or (3) the effects of broader institutions such as rule of law and control of corruption.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12164.

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Date of creation: Apr 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12164

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Cited by:
  1. Du, Luosha & Harrison, Ann & Jefferson, Gary, 2011. "Do institutions matter for FDI spillovers ? the implications of China's"special characteristics"," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5757, The World Bank.
  2. Antonio Tena Junguito, 2008. "Bairoch revisited. Tariff structure and growth in the late 19th century," Working Papers in Economic History wp08-04, Universidad Carlos III, Departamento de Historia Económica e Instituciones.
  3. Nathan Nunn & Daniel Trefler, 2010. "The Structure of Tariffs and Long-Term Growth," Working Papers id:2614, eSocialSciences.
  4. Tena Junguito, Antonio, . "Bairoch revisited : tariff structure and growth in the late nineteenth century," Open Access publications from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid info:hdl:10016/11674, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
  5. Dhammika Dharmapala & James R. Hines Jr., 2006. "Which Countries Become Tax Havens?," NBER Working Papers 12802, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Stéphane BECUWE (GREThA, CNRS, UMR 5113) & Bertrand BLANCHETON (GREThA, CNRS, UMR 5113, 2011. "Tariff growth paradox between 1850 and 1913: a critical survey (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA 2011-24, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée.

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