Do Australian Trade Policies Discriminate Against Less Developed Countries?*

The view that Australian protection discriminates against the less developed countries (LDCs) is examined in this paper. It distinguishes between direct discrimination through tariff preferences and indirect discrimination through inter-commodity differences in rates of protection. The second mechanism proves to be more important. While Australian protection did not discriminate against the LDCs in 1968–49, by 1977–78 it did. This reflects changes in the commodity composition of Australia's imports from the LDC_S.