Clear Your Own Harbors
8 August 2006
Editor, The Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Editor:
Rep. Jim Kolbe rightly calls on rich-country governments to further reduce their trade barriers and dismantle their obnoxious agricultural subsidies ("How Will The Poor Trade Up?" Aug. 8). But he overestimates the benefits that these moves promise to poor countries.
Poor countries' own protectionism is a far larger obstacle to their trade than is rich countries' protectionism. Tariff rates in developing countries average 13 percent, compared to 3 percent in developed countries. Even looking only at agricultural goods, developing countries' average tariff rates are higher (18 percent) than those of developed countries (14 percent).*
Countries that clog their harbors with boulders will gain little when other countries' harbors are cleared.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, “Wanted: Jubilee 2010 Against Protectionism”:
http://www.columbia.edu/~ap2231/Policy%20Papers/Jubilee%202010-rev-Dec31-01.pdf
Editor, The Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Editor:
Rep. Jim Kolbe rightly calls on rich-country governments to further reduce their trade barriers and dismantle their obnoxious agricultural subsidies ("How Will The Poor Trade Up?" Aug. 8). But he overestimates the benefits that these moves promise to poor countries.
Poor countries' own protectionism is a far larger obstacle to their trade than is rich countries' protectionism. Tariff rates in developing countries average 13 percent, compared to 3 percent in developed countries. Even looking only at agricultural goods, developing countries' average tariff rates are higher (18 percent) than those of developed countries (14 percent).*
Countries that clog their harbors with boulders will gain little when other countries' harbors are cleared.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, “Wanted: Jubilee 2010 Against Protectionism”:
http://www.columbia.edu/~ap2231/Policy%20Papers/Jubilee%202010-rev-Dec31-01.pdf
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Monday April 30, 2007 at 8:00am