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The Protectionism Effect: Tariffs, Quotas, and Subsidies

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Kary Bowser
International Economics
Professor Gelgelu
11 February 2013

The Protectionism Effect: Tariffs, Quotas, and Subsidies
The most common way to protect one’s economy from import competition is to implement a tariff: a tax on imports. Generally speaking, a tariff is any tax or fee collected by a government. Sometimes the term “tariff” is used in a nontrade context, as in railroad tariffs. However, the term is much more commonly used to refer to a tax on imported goods.
Tariffs have been applied by countries for centuries and have been one of the most common methods used to collect revenue for governments. This is because it is relatively simple to place customs officials at the border of a country and collect a fee on goods …show more content…

In the most developed countries, average tariffs are less than 10 percent and often less than 5 percent. On average, less-developed countries maintain higher tariff barriers, but many countries that have recently joined the WTO have reduced their tariffs substantially to gain entry.
Problems Using Average Tariffs as a Measure of Protection:
The first problem with using average tariffs as a measure of protection in a country is that there are several different ways to calculate an average tariff rate, and each method can give a very different impression about the level of protection.
The tariffs in Table 1.1 "Average Tariffs in Selected Countries (2009)" are calculated as a simple average. To calculate this rate, one simply adds up all the tariff rates and divides by the number of import categories. One problem with this method arises if a country has most of its trade in a few categories with zero tariffs but has high tariffs in many categories it would never find advantageous to import. In this case, the average

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