Trade liberalization and productivity growth: Time-series evidence from Australian manufacturing

This paper uses historical annual data for 27 years from 1968-69 on eight two-digit ANZSIC industries to assess the impact of the changes in industry assistance on economic efficiency. The empirical analysis shows that a 1 per cent decline in the nominal rate of assistance leads to between 0.18 and 0.56 per cent gain in total factor productivity, the latter our measure of economic efficiency. This finding has strong policy implications for the future of tariff reform in the manufacturing sector.