The Impact of International Trade and Protection on Australian Manufacturing Employment

Noel Gaston

Australian Economic Papers, 1998, vol. 37, issue 2, 119-136

Abstract: The labour market consequences of trade and protection have only recently come under the scrutiny of labour economists. This paper seeks to accomplish two things ‐ to survey the recent research and to provide estimates of the effect that reductions in effective rates of assistance afforded to Australia's manufacturing industries have had on employment. Recent labour market developments reveal a downward trend in manufacturing employment levels. The declines appear to have been associated with lower levels of assistance. However, the estimates of the effect of lower levels of protection are generally small ‐ about a one per cent reduction in employment for each ten per cent reduction in the effective rate of industry assistance. In addition, the manufacturing employment developments appear to be only weakly linked to real wage resistance. Overall, an overriding impression from the find ings presented in this paper is the strength of the structural adjustments ongoing in Australia

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8454.00010

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ausecp:v:37:y:1998:i:2:p:119-136

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0004-900X

Access Statistics for this article

Australian Economic Papers is currently edited by Daniel Leonard

More articles in Australian Economic Papers from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().