M.B.A. / According to du Plessis et al., (1994:67), the history of protectionism in trade goes almost as far back as that of trade itself. There are various arguments for the numerous benefits, which can be gained from free trade such as, efficiency and welfare gains. But, despite these benefits, governments have had counter arguments as to why protectionism is justified. Examples of these traditional arguments for protection are, the infant industry argument, the terms of trade argument, protection to increase employment in an industry, a tariff to offset foreign dumping and a tariff to improve the balance of payments. All of these arguments have important gains for the protected economy but could be considered beggar-thyneighbour policies since they are at the expense of the unprotected economy. Various trade instruments are used by governments to intervene in its countries trading activities. These trade instruments are categorised into, tariff, non-tariff barriers and export taxes and subsidies. Both tariff and non-tariff barriers are used to interfere on the import side of trade, whereas export subsidies and taxes are used to interfere with the free flow of exports. Tariff barriers include specific tariffs, ad valorem tariffs, import subsidies, preferential duties, most-favoured nation treatment and offshore assembly provisions. Nontariff barriers include import quotas, "voluntary" export restraints, government procurement provisions, local content provisions, administrative classification and restriction on service trade (du Plessis et al.,1994:67-70). An example of a protected industry in South Africa is the motor industry. The initial protectionist programmes used by the motor industry were characterised by local content policies. These programmes resulted in a heavily protected motor and component industry. In recent years, policymakers have attempted to reduce the level of protection in the industry through the Motor Industry Development Programme (MIDP), in line with the General Trade and Tariff Agreement (GATT). This programme is not only attempting to reduce the use of trade instruments but, also to become globally competitive. This dissertation attempts to evaluate the effects that protectionism, in the form of the Motor Industry Development Programme, has had on the Motor Industry's component suppliers.

O presente trabalho se propôs a estudar os efeitos do imposto de importação sobre o nível de investimento das empresas nacionais beneficiadas e sobre o valor de mercado dessas empresas. O mercado estudado foi dos Estados Unidos, pois graças a uma base de dados diferenciada da NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH (NBER), que vincula a alíquota do imposto do produto a um setor, foi possível fazer a análise entre investimento e esse imposto utilizando-se do método de mínimos quadrados. Para analisar o efeito sobre o valor de mercado das empresas foi feito um estudo de evento. As conclusões são de que uma variação positiva nessa alíquota faz com que as empresas aumentem seus níveis de investimento. Esse efeito é maior em empresas com maior rentabilidade e menor nas empresas que tem melhores oportunidades de investimento (medido pelo Q de Tobin). No estudo de eventos, em um dos dois eventos analisados o aumento da alíquota teve impacto positivo no valor de mercado das empresas beneficiadas. A principal implicação desses resultados é que essa política protecionista realmente beneficia o setor protegido fazendo com que as empresas invistam mais, principalmente as mais lucrativas. / This dissertation proposes to study the effects of import tariffs on the investments and market value of the national firms benefited by it. This study uses an American database, because thanks to a unique database of the NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH (NBER), which associates the import tariffs rate to an industry sector, it was possible to analyze between investments and tariffs, using the method of least squares. To analyze the effect on the market value of the companies an event study was used. The conclusion is that a positive variation on tariffs will lead to an increase on the firm’s investment level. This effect is more significant on firms with more profitability and less significant on firms that have better investment opportunities (measured by Tobin’s Q ratio). In the event studies, in one case the increase on import tariffs had a positive influence on the market value of the benefited companies. The most important implication of this results is that this protectionist policy really benefits the protected sector of the economy making its companies invest more, specially the most profitable ones.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Caribbean Basin Trade Protection Act (CBTPA) of the USA are trade preference programmes offering reduced tariffs to African countries. We investigate the impact of the preferences on the exports of the recipients in this thesis. Using annual data on mirror exports, macroeconomic, social, cultural and religious variables, we evaluate the impact of the preferences in three different ways—(1) difference-in-differences, (2) quantile and (3) matching estimators. As part of our review of the empirical evidence, we conduct a meta-analysis to summarise the quantitative AGOA literature. This is augmented with a meta-regression to investigate the presence of publication bias. In chapter 3, the first of the three empirical chapters, the question asked is, “has there been an observed increase in the exports of AGOA and CBTPA recipients to the USA compared to their exports to the rest of the world?” The identification of the impact consists of modelling the selection in exporting that occurs and accounting for the zero trade occurring at the HS-6 digit level of disaggregation. One result is that, the impact of the preference varies with the level of product aggregation. The two remaining chapters focus on the AGOA preference and is identified due to the exogenous provision of the preference. Chapter 4 adopts a matching approach while chapter 5 is based on a quantile regression. The matching estimates providing the mean impacts are negative for exports to the USA compared to the counter-factual. In Chapter 5, we show that, the impact of the preference on the recipients is unequal—oil exporters are the largest gainers. We decompose the impact by using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition found in Machado and Mata (2005) for quantile regressions. We find that, the gains to AGOA recipients are confined to the top half of the export distribution—implying that the gains from AGOA are unequal and thus heterogeneous in their impact on the recipients.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-67). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1934. / "Selected bibliography": p. 142-153.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-106). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Protectionism is found to be the most significant cause of distortion in the international wheat market. In some cases, however, in particular the US Export Enhancement Program, it appears to be counter-distortionary i.e. redressing distortions on trade patterns caused by other protectionist policies. Also, the effects of including in the model countries additional to those in the basic model are analysed, and a comparison with the international soya market is made.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2007. / "Graduate Program in Economics." Includes bibliographical references (p. 86-89).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-67).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Johns Hopkins University, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 288-306).