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Politicians and protection: Tariffs and elections in Australia

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Abstract

An index of manufacturing industry tariff protection is calculated for each Australian federal electoral division and used to test for the presence of voting factors in the electoral incidence of tariff protection. There is a strong positive relationship between the level of tariffs and the Labor vote in an electorate, though this is more likely to be evidence for the effect of levels of manufacturing activity than for systematic electoral manipulation of tariffs. Smaller samples of electorates do suggest that governments shift the largest tariff increases into electorates which they won at the previous election.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Columbia University, 420 West 118th Street, 10027, New York, NY

    John Conybeare

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  1. John Conybeare
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Additional information

The author wishes to thank Gordon Tullock and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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Conybeare, J. Politicians and protection: Tariffs and elections in Australia. Public Choice 43, 203–209 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00140834

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00140834

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