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Protectionism and “Infant” Industries. Theoretical Approaches
Economics and Applied Informatics, 2010
For many centuries, the customs duties, the quantitative restrictions and other similar stipulations have represented the instruments specific to historical progress of any countries, from one moment of time to another; such instruments were emphasized either by increasing the revenues, by supporting the development of some areas, thus protecting them against to foreign competition, or by other reasons. The protectionist systems have had followers within all structures of the society, where each of them have brought substantiations dictated by own faith or interests.
Protectionism and “ Infant ” Industries
2010
For many centuries, the customs duties, the quantitative restrictions and other similar stipulations have represented the instruments specific to historical progress of any countries, from one moment of time to another; such instruments were emphasized either by increasing the revenues, by supporting the development of some areas, thus protecting them against to foreign competition, or by other reasons. The protectionist systems have had followers within all structures of the society, where each of them have brought substantiations dictated by own faith or interests.
Nº.: Working Papers in Economic History …, 2006
This paper endeavors to study Spanish protectionism on the Italian mirror. On the assumption that literature present both European peripheral countries at a similar stage of development that reacted with a similar protectionist reply to late 19th century economic globalization. Nevertheless, competitiveness and specialization of the respective industrial structures were quite different, as the manufacture export performance in the two countries shows since the turn of the century. This paper will emphasize the existence of significant different protection policies in Spain and Italy between 1860-1930 as an influential variable. The analysis of the quantitative evidence characterize the Italian and Spanish protectionist as low and fiscal versus high and manufacture respectively. The paper develop a new test on the infant industry argument for Spain and Italy which aims at measuring the dynamic effects produced by protection on both economies.
History of Economic Thought Economics 970
Mailbox: 2nd floor of Littauer Office Hours: By appointment Course Description This sophomore tutorial is an intensive course in the intellectual history of political economy. It will focus on exposing students to the great figures in the development of our discipline through a careful reading of their major works. Through this experience, students will not only improve their understanding of economic reasoning and analysis, but also gain a unique appreciation of how modern economics evolved into its present form. The first third of the course is devoted to classical economics. To set the scene for the rise of modern political economy, we will briefly discuss political debates on foreign trade and the national economy and early efforts at economic analysis in the 17th and 18th centuries, covering Mun, Petty, Hume, and Quesnay. We will then spend four weeks reading major works by Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Say, Mill, and Marx. This section of the course will pay particular attention to classical ideas of price and value, distribution and social classes, population growth, economic growth and long-run trends, gluts and economic crises, the economic role of the state, and international trade. The second third of the course covers the rise of neoclassicism. We will read works by Jevons, Menger, Marshall, Edgeworth, Cournot, Walras, Pareto, Pigou, and others. In the process, we will seek to understand the new vision, tools of analysis, and assumptions that defined neoclassical economics, and we will relate this material both to the first part of the course and to what students have learned in their intermediate theory classes. Among other topics, we will discuss marginalism, general equilibrium, and welfare economics.
In this thesis, I provide an analysis of the Italian commercial reforms of 1878 from the point of view of the global intellectual history of political economy. Alongside a detailed reconstruction of the first move of the Kingdom of Italy towards protectionism, the case study sheds light on the role of political economy as a science in the process of Italian state building. During the nineteeth century, political economy was institutionalized as a necessary science in a world increasingly populated by modern nation-states. In order to highlight the local articulation of this global process, a study of external trade policies provides a vantage point for my aim. In fact, trade barriers were an important fiscal revenue for the Italian nation-state, whose state-building process was far from completed after the political unification of the peninsula in 1861 - the main political goal of Italian ruling elites. In addition, the level of custom duties was the main target of the economic debate between protectionism and free trade -contraposition that fiercely divided nineteenth century commentators. I study how the circulation of ideas of political economy affected the institutional, symbolic and performative dimensions of the newborn Kingdom of Italy, using as my primary sources the transcripts of the Parliamentary debates and the legislative and administrative documents produced during the elaboration of the reforms.
The history of economic thought is a juggernaut of blueprints penned by Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Lenin, Keynes, Hayek, Ricardo, Mill and many pundits who developed unparalleled thoughts throughout the centuries. The forces of the market-state chemistry and capital-labour relations have been the dominant focus of research that inform the vicissitudes witnessed in the inability of economic principles to explain the global crises witnessed in the 21st Century. Adam Smith's vision is a blueprint for a completely new mode of social organisation, whose laws of the market -- the drive of individual self-interest in an environment of similarly motivated individuals will result in competition: the provision of goods in the quantities that society desires and at the prices it is prepared to pay. This regulator is competition. Karl Marx’s final contribution lies elsewhere: in his dialectical materialist theory of history, analysed in Das Kapital with fury, but with cold logic. Finally, the drama ends. Marx's picture of it has all the eloquence of a description of Damnation: Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolise all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation and exploitation. With this too grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, united by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself.... Centralisation of the means of production and socialisation of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument, it bursts asunder, the knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated. Adam Smith’s capitalist escalator climbed upward, Ricardo’s upward motion was stalled by in-sufficient cropland, which brought a stalemate to progress and a windfall to the fortunate proprietor, Mill’s society could distribute its product as it saw fit, regardless of what economic laws seemed to dictate. Nonetheless, for Marx even that saving possibility was untenable, for the materialist view of history told him that the state was only the political ruling organ of the economic rulers; the thought that it might act as a third force balancing the claims of its conflicting members, would have seemed sheer wishful thinking.
Underdevelopment and Economic Theory of Growth: Case for Infant Industry Promotion
The article reviews the literature on economic development, critiques neoliberal economic theories, and advances the theory of infant industry promotion as an alternative model for development in Africa. The essay argues that for developing countries to catch up to developed countries requires contextualizing development theory, applying selective economic policies to industries where productive capacities can be developed, and localizing the policy lessons to develop the productive abilities of local industries. The role of state in development and implementation of protective measures such as tariffs, import bans on key raw materials, and rebates on industrial inputs is discussed. To escape the Resource Curse, African states will have to develop an alternative source of employment, an industrial base, and strengthen the productive powers of infant industries if those industries are to survive fierce international competition. To be durable in the African context, economic policy must reflect local conditions, vary from one historical context to the next, use readily available resources, and adequately respond to local problems.