The Political Economy of Manufacturing Protection

Book excerpt: Protection is a persistent feature of economic policy in developed and developing countries alike. However, it is now widely accepted that high protection holds back economic growth. Why is protection so pervasive when it is widely recognised to be against the national interest of the countries which impose it? This contradiction is the focus of this important volume, first published in 1986. Economists from the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia have written about their countries and draw conclusions on the causes of protection from statistical analysis and from interindustry structure.