Understanding the World Wool Market: Trade, Productivity and Grower Incomes. Part 6: The Costs of Global Tariff Barriers on Wool Products; Conclusion

Abstract

This is Chapters 6 & 7 of my PhD thesis Understanding the World Wool Market: Trade, Productivity and Grower Incomes, UWA, 2006. The full thesis is available as Discussion Papers 06.19 to 06.24. The WOOLGEM model is applied to estimate the distortionary effects on prices, output, trade and regional welfare of wool tariff barriers. The estimates are simulated under long-run conditions where each region faces a trade balance constraint and capital is free to accumulate or depreciate within each region. Our experiments analyse the distortionary effects of tariff barriers from 1997 to 2005, and from 2005 onwards.