Trade Protection and Capital Imports in the Mexican Manufacturing Sector

41 Pages Posted: 13 Dec 2005 Last revised: 5 Mar 2008

See all articles by Vasilios D. Kosteas

Vasilios D. Kosteas

Cleveland State University - Department of Economics

Abstract

Several studies have investigated the link between trade protection and productivity in developing economies. Others have looked into the relationship between technology imports and in-house technology production. This paper fills a void in the literature by estimating the effect of trade protection on purchases of foreign capital goods for a panel of Mexican manufacturing plants. Tariffs on output lower the probability a plant will import capital goods, while both output and input tariffs lead to smaller quantities of capital imports. Capital imports are also associated with higher productivity. Thus, trade barriers may indirectly lower productivity by inhibiting the importation of foreign technologies through capital goods.

Keywords: capital imports, Latin America, Mexico, trade protection

JEL Classification: F14, L60, O14, O33

Suggested Citation

Kosteas, Vasilios D., Trade Protection and Capital Imports in the Mexican Manufacturing Sector. World Development, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=868654 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.868654

Vasilios D. Kosteas (Contact Author)

Cleveland State University - Department of Economics ( email )

2121 Euclid Avenue
RT 1707
Cleveland, OH
United States
216-687-4526 (Phone)
216-687-9206 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
59
Abstract Views
631
Rank
87,832
PlumX Metrics