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Who Gains from Trade Protection in Ghana? A Household-Level Analysis

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Author Info
Charles Ackah,
Oliver Morrissey,
Simon Appleton

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Abstract

In this paper, we present one of the first direct microeconometric studies of the impact of trade protection on household income in Ghana. Tariff measures at the two-digit ISIC level are matched to Ghanaian household survey data for 1991/92 and 1998/99 to represent the tariff for the industry in which the household head is employed. We examine the possibility that the effect of protection on income might not be uniform across households characterized by different skill levels. Specifically, we allow the relationship between welfare and trade policy to differ for households with different levels of education. In the absence of suitable panel data, the analysis applies pseudo-panel econometric techniques to our repeated cross-section data. This method has rarely been used in poverty analysis. The results suggest that higher tariffs are associated with higher incomes for households employed in the sector, so tariff reductions may reduce incomes (and increase poverty), at least in the short run, but with differing effects across skill groups. We find that this positive effect of protection is disproportionately greater for low skilled labour households, suggesting an erosion of welfare of unskilled labour households would result from trade liberalization. We conclude that contemplating trade liberalization without recognizing the complementary role of human capital investment may be a sub-optimal policy for the poor, at least in the short-run.

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Paper provided by University of Nottingham, CREDIT in its series Discussion Papers with number 07/02.

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Keywords: Tariffs; Trade liberalisation; Household welfare; Pseudo-panel; Ghana;

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  4. Görg, Holger & Strobl, Eric, 2002. "Relative Wages, Openness and Skill-Biased Technological Change," IZA Discussion Papers 596, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  7. Verbeek, Marno & Nijman, Theo, 1992. "Can Cohort Data Be Treated as Genuine Panel Data?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 9-23.
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  10. Attanasio, Orazio P & Weber, Guglielmo, 1995. "Is Consumption Growth Consistent with Intertemporal Optimization? Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1121-57, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Blundell, Richard & Meghir, Costas & Neves, Pedro, 1993. "Labour supply and intertemporal substitution," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1-2), pages 137-160, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Goldberg, Pinelopi Koujianou & Pavcnik, Nina, 2003. "Trade, Wages and the Political Economy of Trade Protection: Evidence from the Colombian Trade Reforms," CEPR Discussion Papers 3877, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Deaton, Angus, 1985. "Panel data from time series of cross-sections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 109-126. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Ann Harrison & Gordon Hanson, 1999. "Who Gains from Trade Reform? Some Remaining Puzzles," NBER Working Papers 6915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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