Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Australia Since World War II

Kym Anderson, Peter J Lloyd and Donald Maclaren

No 6436, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Australia?s lacklustre economic growth performance in the first four decades following World War II was in part due to an anti-trade, anti-primary sector bias in government assistance policies. This paper provides new annual estimates of the extent of those biases since 1946 and their gradual phase-out during the past two decades. In doing so it reveals that the timing of the sectoral assistance cuts was such as sometimes to improve but sometimes to worsen the distortions to incentives faced by farmers. Also, the changes increased the variation of assistance rates within agriculture during the 1950s and 1960s, reducing the welfare contribution of those programs in that period. While the assistance pattern within agriculture appears not to have been strongly biased against exporters, its reform has coincided with a substantial increase in export orientation of many farm industries. The overall pattern for Australia is contrasted with that revealed by comparable new estimates for other high-income countries.

Keywords: Agricultural assistance; Distorted incentives; Manufacturing protection; Trade policy reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F14 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-his and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

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