On Protectionism in the Netherlands

by K.A. Koekkoek, Ad Koekkoek, L.B.M. Mennes

The paper is introduced by a bird's eye view of developments in industry and trade since World War II. Changes in the structure of industrial production as well as shifts in industrial policies due to changing objectives of socioeconomic policy are discussed. Trade policies, in particular their protectionist aspects, are considered. Total assistance consists of four types of protectionist measures: tariffs, subsidies, taxes and variable levies. Estimates were made for 17 industrial sectors of Dutch manufacturing industry for the years 1970, 1975 and 1976. This corresponds to the level of aggregation of the Netherlands input-output tables. For the year 1975 similar estimates are also presented for 32 industrial sectors, use being made of an unpublished input-output table. Special attention is given to the role of subsidies in Dutch economic policy. The differences in assistance among sectors are analyzed for each of the available years. This is done with the aid of the three models of political economy: the adding machine, interest group and national policy models. The paper concludes with a brief summary of the results obtained.

68 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 1981