Effective Rates of Protection in an Industrialising, Settler Economy: Estimates for Victoria (Australia) in 1880*

Abstract

This study estimates effective rates of protection for 33 manufacturing industries in Victoria in 1880. These estimates lead to eight observations. Notably, the effective rates of protection suggest that the magnitude of protection in late-nineteenth-century Victoria was considerably less than in the other industrialising, settler economies of Canada and the United States—to a more pronounced degree than suggested by nominal tariff levels. Also, colonial Victoria exhibits a very high correlation between nominal tariffs and effective rates of protection. This finding should enhance the confidence of economic historians in using the former as a proxy for the latter.