THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF TARIFFS IN THE 1930s IN AUSTRALIA: THE BRIGDEN REPORT RE-EXAMINED*

In 1927, the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr S.M. Bruce, appointed a committee of economists to undertake an inquiry into the economic impact of the Australian tariffs. The Report of this committee, known as the Brigden Report, was published in July 1929. In assessing the impact of tariffs on the Australian economy, the committee concluded that the protective tariff has been an effective means of securing a higher standard of living for a larger population. The purpose of this paper is to examine this conclusion quantitatively by simulating a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the 1930s in Australia. The results support the above conclusion of the Brigden Committee if the demand for Australian primary exports were price inelastic.     

试析历史地理环境中福建海商的兴衰

在特殊的历史地理环境中，植根于中国传统农业社会的福建商业经济一直不断加强着与海内外的联系。宋元以后随着人口和经济的繁荣，福建的对外贸易更是发展迅猛，随之出现了大量的海商乃至海商集团，成为海洋商业文化发展的重要标志。近代以后，由于国内外政治经济条件的变化，福建海商逐渐步入衰弱，但其海洋人文影响却至今犹存。     

THE DYNAMIC AND DISTRIBUTIONAL ASPECTS OF IMPORT TARIFFS

We use a dynamic trade model with two sectors and two types of workers to analyze the optimal setting of income‐generating tariffs. We study dynamic and distributional aspects focusing on the time horizon of policymakers and workers. The level of tariffs preferred by workers depends on the sector where they are employed as well as their skill class, with the relative weight of both aspects determined by the time horizon of the workers. Unskilled workers in the unskilled‐intensive sector are the ones most in favor of protectionism and might even benefit from a trade war.     

IMPERIAL PREFERENCE:THE CASE OF AUSTRALIAN BEEF IN THE 1930s

During the 1930s, the Australian beef export industry, after protracted negotiations, was granted substantial concessions by the British Government. This paper traces the development of British and Australian government policies during the decade, shows how considerably the Australian beef industry benefited from concessions made to it at Ottawa in 1932 and, more particularly, in subsequent years, and concludes with a discussion of the considerations which appear to have influenced British decisions     

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS OF AUSTRALIAN GDP IN THE 19TH CENTURY

This paper summarises the results of a new comparison of the level of Australian and U.K. real product in the 1890s, obtained by the direct deflation of money values of GDP by relative prices. The object of the study was to provide a check on the existing comparisons, obtained by extrapolation of time series of real GDP, as shown, for example, in Maddison (1982). Existing estimates imply that in the 1890s Australian GDP per capita was about 50 percent higher in the U.K. and U.S.A. and more than twice that for the average of 12 other western countries. The present study suggests these results probably overstate Australia's real GDP, and that Australian real GDP per capita was 36 percent higher than the U.K. in 1891 and 3 percent higher in 1900. Personal consumption per capita was 15 percent higher in Australia than in the U.K. in 1891, but about the same level in 1900.
Although this study compares prices and GDP in the colony of New South Wales with those in the U.K., the colony may be taken as representative of Australia as a whole.¹     

ENVIRONMENTAL EFFICIENCY OF THE AUSTRALIAN IRRIGATION INDUSTRY IN TREATING SALT EMISSIONS

In this paper, a stochastic translog production function frontier is specified to estimate the input-oriented technical efficiency of 11 major Australian irrigation schemes. The analysis is applied to a panel data set including the years 1998/1999, 1999/2000 and 2000/2001. The environmental efficiency of each sampled irrigation scheme in relation to treating salt emissions is measured. These EE measures are based on estimates of technical efficiency. The potential reduction of the environmentally detrimental salt emissions resulting from the improvement of environmental inefficiency is estimated. The study indicates that the sampled schemes operated at an average of 80.4% (1998/1999), 89.9% (1999/2000) to 95% (2000/2001) of full environmental efficiency. The potential contraction of salt emission is substantial. The paper also reveals that there is a wide range of EE scores in each year suggesting differences in the management performance of the salt emission problem across individual schemes.