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History
Historically, protectionism was associated with economic theories such
as mercantilism (that believed that it is beneficial to maintain a positive trade
balance), and import substitution. During that time, Adam Smith famously warned
against the "interested sophistry" of industry, seeking to gain advantage at the cost
of the consumers.
Mainstream economists agree that protectionism is harmful in that its
costs outweigh the benefits and that it impedes economic growth.
Cambridge University Professor Ha-Joon Chang argues that virtually
all developed countries today successfully promoted their national industries
through protectionism. Chang points to the significantly high tariffs of the UK, the
US and other countries during their process of industrialization. While noting the
success of protectionism, Chang has attempted to argue that it would be unfair if
the developed countries now re-instituted protectionism by stating that those
countries that used protectionist policies during their growth would be trying to
"kick away the ladder" from developing countries. In the words of 19th century
German economist, Friedrich List:
It is a very common clever device that when anyone has attained the
summit of greatness, he kicks away the ladder by which he has climbed up, in
order to deprive others of the means of climbing up after him. In this lies the secret
of the political doctrine of Adam Smith, and of the political tendencies of his great
contemporary William Pitt, and of all his successors in the British Government
administrations. Any nation which by means of protective duties and restrictions
on navigation has raised her manufacturing power and her navigation to such a
degree of development that no other nation can sustain free competition with her,
can do nothing wiser than to throw away these ladders of her greatness, to preach
to other nations the benefits of free trade, and to declare in penitent tones that she
has hitherto wandered in the paths of error, and has now for the first time
succeeded in discovering the truth.
9. equal opportunity,
10. Protection of Intellectual property rights can prevent competition from MNCs.
11. Strong minimum wage, occupational safety, and health legislation can safe
guard the interests of local industry.
However protection is advocated on grounds of long term interest and macro
objective.
B. Labor argument :
When a country imports a good from labor intensive economy the condition of
domestic labor employment and wages worsen. When labor intensive goods are
imposed employment is generated in the exporting country. To that extent the
importing country may suffer decline in wages and employment.
The counter agreement states that labor intensive goods are imported only when
the domestic level of employment is very high with high wages it will not be
economical to produce goods domestically. Further the proportion of labor
intensive good in the total import will be so small that adverse effect cannot take
place.
However while importing labor intensive goods care should be taken to ensure the
domestic interest of employment and wages.
C. Key trading argument
A country shall develop key important and basic industries on its own. Depending
on imports may not provide continuous flow of inputs.
D. Strategic and defense industries argument:
The defense industries should be developed internally for reasons of strategic
importance. Technology developed internally provides greater security. Efficiency
in resource utilization is not an important issue.
Instruments of protection
1. Tariffs:
Typically, tariffs (or taxes) are imposed on imported goods.Tariff
rates usually vary according to the type of goods imported. Import tariffs
will increase the cost to importers, and increase the price of imported goods
in the local markets, thus lowering the quantity of goods imported, to favor
local producers. Tariffs may also be imposed on exports, and in an economy
with floating exchange rates, export tariffs have similar effects as import
tariffs.
2. Import quotas:
Quotas are used to reduce the quantity and therefore increase the market
price of imported goods. The economic effects of an import quota are similar
to that of a tariff, except that the tax revenue gain from a tariff will instead
be distributed to those who receive import licenses. Economists often
suggest that import licenses be auctioned to the highest bidder, or that import
quotas be replaced by an equivalent tariff.
3. Administrative barriers:
Countries are sometimes found using their various administrative rules (e.g.
regarding food safety, environmental standards, electrical safety, etc.) to
introduce barriers to imports.
4. Anti-dumping laws prevent "dumping" of cheaper foreign goods that
would cause local firms to close down. However, in practice, antidumping
laws are usually used to impose trade tariffs on foreign exporters.
5. Direct subsidies:
Government subsidies (in the form of lump-sum payments or cheap loans)
are sometimes given to local firms that cannot compete well against imports.
These subsidies protect local jobs, and to help local firms adjust to the world
markets.
6. Export subsidies:
Export subsidies are often used by governments to increase exports. Export
subsidies are the opposite of export tariffs; exporters are paid a percentage of
the value of their exports. Export subsidies increase the amount of trade, and
in a country with floating exchange rates, have effects similar to import
subsidies.
7. Exchange rate manipulation:
A government may intervene in the foreign exchange market to lower the
value of its currency by selling its currency in the foreign exchange market.
Doing so will raise the cost of imports and lower the cost of exports, leading
to an improvement in its trade balance.
8. International patent systems:
National patents help protect trade at a national level in two ways. Firstly,
when patents held by one country form relative advantage in trade
negotiations against another, secondly patents confers "good citizenship"
status.
9. Employment based immigration restrictions, such as labor certification
requirement or numerical caps on work visas.
Tariff
Tariff is an important instrument of protection. It is a tax duty imposed on
imports. The objective is to make import expensive, discourage import and
courage domestic industries.
In practice tariff can be levied in four ways :
1. Specific duty: It is a duty levied as per the quantity. Specific dutyis levied
in case of bulk low value merchandise.
Import Quota
Dumping
Haberler defines dumping as "the sale of a good abroad at a price which is
lower than the selling price of the same good at the same time and in the
same circumstances at home, taking account of differences in transport
costs."
Under dumping, a producer possessing monopoly in the domestic market for
his product charges a high price to the domestic buyers and sells it at a low
competitive price to the domestic buyers and sells it at a low competitive
price in the foreign market. A reverse dumping is followed if a producer
charges a low domestic price and high foreign price for the product.
Discriminatory monopoly pricing in foreign trade is described as dumping.
It implies different prices in the domestic and foreign markets.
In this special case of price discrimination where the firm is a monopolist in
the home market and faces competition in the foreign market.
In the home market the firm faces a downward sloping (demand) AR
curve whereas in the foreign market the AR curve is perfectly elastic
with AR=MR=Price relation.
The firm firstly, determines the out put to be produced for the local as well
as the foreign markets. There after, the out put needs to be distributed among
home and foreign markets. Finally, the price is determined.
1. Out put determination
MC = MR ( maximum possible MR)
2. Out put distribution
MRh = MRf
3. Price determination
The prices are determined as per AR in the home market and at the existing
price at the foreign market.
The out put is determined by equating MC=MR. This is the profit
maximizing out put. The out put is distributed by equating MRs in different
markets. i.e. MRf = MRh
At this point the out put is allotted for home market and he price is
determined as per the downward sloping demand curve. The remaining out
put is sold in the foreign market at the price prevailing as per
AR=MR=Price.
It can be seen that the firm sells a small out put in the home market at high
price and a large out put in the foreign market at low price. This is called
dumping.
The rationale behind dumping is that it enables the exporter to compete in
the foreign market and capture the market by selling at a low price, even
sometimes below costs and to make up for the deficiency in sales revenueby
charging high prices to the home buyers (taking advantage of monopoly
power in the home market). In fact, the higher domestic price serves to
subsidies a segment of the foreign price which helps considerably in
promoting exports.
The export earnings may, however, be made available to promote the growth
of home industries, which otherwise would not have been possible.
Moreover, by resorting to dumping, when the producer is able to widen the
size of foreign markets for his product, his investment risks are minimized
and when he has to launch large scale production he can reap the economies
of large scale resulting in costs minimization. Eventually, in the long run, it
may become possible for him to sell goods at cheaper rates in the domestic
market as well.
Anti dumping
Anti dumping is a measure to rectify the situation arising out of the
dumping of goods and its trade distortive effect. Thus, the purpose of
anti dumping duty is to rectify the trade distortive effect of dumping
and reestablish fair trade. The use of anti dumping measure as an
instrument of fair competition is permitted by the WTO. In fact, anti
dumping is an instrument for ensuring fair trade and is not a measure
of protection for the domestic industry. It provides relief to the
domestic industry against the injury caused by dumping.
Anti dumping measures do not provide protection per se to the
domestic industry. It only serves the purpose of providing remedy to
the domestic industry against the injury caused by the unfair trade
practice of dumping.
Subsidies
Protection to home industries is also granted by giving subsidies to the
domestic producers. Especially when the cost of production is high and
domestic producers are incapable of either competing with foreign goods or
sell goods at a cheaper rate, the government may give them subsidies in the
form of tax exemption, development rebate or tax remittance or a segment of
the cost of production may also be borne by the state.
Further, in order to encourage exporters, they may be given export bounties.
Export bonuses or bounties in effect artificially bring down the domestic
price of goods to be exported; hence exporters will be in a position to sell
them at low prices in the foreign market, thereby, stepping up exports.
Generally, all subsidies and bounties tend to reduce imports and increase
exports, but eventually they cause diversion of resources from more efficient
to less efficient uses.
Export subsidies cost the Government heavy expenditure. Every U.S. citizen
pays approximately $13 per year to support cotton production in the U.S.
These subsidies to cotton producers encourage additional production beyond
the scale of the original market for cotton thereby creating surpluses.
International Cartels
An international cartel is formed by producers in the same line of production
in two or more countries, agreeing to regulate production and sales for
monopolistic ends.
A cartel is a group of formally independent producers whose goal it is to fix
prices, to limit supply and to limit competition. Cartels are prohibited by
antitrust laws in most countries; however, they continue to exist nationally
and internationally, formally and informally Haberler defines international
cartels more precisely as
"A union of producers in a given branch of industry, of as many
countries as possible, into an organization to exercise a single planned
control over production and price and possibly to divide markets between
the different producing countries."
Thus international cartels are a sort of monopoly combines to eliminate
competition in the foreign markets. Cartel members usually form an
organized association through explicit agreements which would ensure them
higher profits than would be possible otherwise.
In general, cartels are economically unstable in that there is a great incentive
for members to cheat and to sell more than the quotas set by the cartel. This
has caused many cartels that attempt to set product prices to be unsuccessful
in the long term. Empirical studies of 20th century cartels have determined
that the mean duration of discovered cartels is from 5 to 8 years.
De Beers diamond cartel and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) are permanent cartels.
Indeed, the scope of cartels is wide enough covering metals and minerals,
and manufactured goods like chemicals, dyestuffs, pharmaceutical products
and electrical goods.
The main inducing factor behind the formation of cartels is the fear of
cutthroat competition and desire for monopoly control. Further, when
productive capacity is found to exceed current demand, international cartels
have been formed as an attempt to share a diminished market.
Krause points out the following important objects of cartels:
1. To achieve control over prices Cartels resort to price-fixing above
competition price and reap high monopoly profits.
2. To impair the quality of product. When cartels are formed, buyers will
have no safeguards against low quality, since hardly an opportunity is
made available to the buyers to choose between different varieties.
3. To make allocation of trade territories and thereby to acquire and
maintain a monopolistic position by each cartel member in their
respective allocated- markets.
4. To restrict supply, assigning quotas to each cartel member.
5. To deliberately retard technological change until the existing plants
and productive facilities have been fully depreciated.
International cartels seem to have the following merits:
1. Due to business combines, large-scale output is made possible,
so goods may be sold at cheaper rates through cartels.
2. Cartels tend to eliminate wasteful competition also.
3. Cartels can solve the problem of excess capacity.
However, the cartels have the following drawbacks:
1. They tend to reduce international trade on account of
restricted output and high price policy.
2. International cartels may also mean under utilization of the
world's resources and manpower, in view of lack of
competition and the system of production quotas followed
by the cartel members.