[marketcorrection] Don Boudreaux: Clear Your Own Harbors

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Posted by Don Boudreaux:
Clear Your Own Harbors
http://marketcorrection.powerblogs.com/posts/1177934412.shtml


   8 August 2006
   Editor, The Washington Post
   1150 15th St., NW
   Washington, DC 20071
   Dear Editor:
   Rep. Jim Kolbe rightly calls on rich-country governments to further
   reduce their trade barriers and dismantle their obnoxious agricultural
   subsidies ("How Will The Poor Trade Up?" Aug. 8). But he overestimates
   the benefits that these moves promise to poor countries.
   Poor countries' own protectionism is a far larger obstacle to their
   trade than is rich countries' protectionism. Tariff rates in
   developing countries average 13 percent, compared to 3 percent in
   developed countries. Even looking only at agricultural goods,
   developing countries' average tariff rates are higher (18 percent)
   than those of developed countries (14 percent).*
   Countries that clog their harbors with boulders will gain little when
   other countries' harbors are cleared.
   Sincerely,
   Donald J. Boudreaux
   Chairman, Department of Economics
   George Mason University
   * Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya, âWanted: Jubilee 2010
   Against Protectionismâ:
   http://www.columbia.edu/~ap2231/Policy%20Papers/Jubilee%202010-rev-Dec
   31-01.pdf