- Record: found
- Abstract: found
- Article: found
THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT OFFSETS PROGRAM
Abstract
The Australian government offsets program has been in place since 1970, but until recently, with the publication of the report of the Committee of Review on Offsets, it has operated with little public scrutiny and has attracted little academic interest. This is a program aimed at the manufacturing sector in Australia, with a view to increasing Australian firms' participation in internationally competitive activities. Issues posed as requiring investigation include: the protection aspects of offsets, their efficacy in transferring technologies from overseas suppliers of government funded purchases, the question of economic integration and the countertrade dimension of offsets.
Content
Author and article information
NOTES AND REFERENCES
Joint Press Release by the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Minister for Defence Support, 3 April 1984.
Joint Statement on Defence Industries, Minister for Trade and Industry and the Minister for Defence and Supply, 1 April 1970.
The Australian Government Offsets Program: Guidelines for Participants, AGPS, Canberra, 1986, paras. 2.1, 2.2.
ibid., para. 2.2.
ibid., para. 3.5.
ibid., para. 9.3.
ibid., chapter 4.
ibid., para. 5.3.
ibid., chapter 5.
ibid., chapter 6.
Report of the Committee of Review on Offsets, AGPS, Canberra, 1985, para. 3.14.
The Australian Government Offsets Program: Guidelines for Participants, op. cit., chapter 7.
Civil aerospace is a major contributor to the AGOP. It is interesting to observe that Australia is not signatory to the GATT agreement on civil aircraft, which, although not explicitly banning offsets, appears to do so implicitly.
Report of the Committee of Review on Offsets, op. cit., p. 29.
ibid., p. 45.
ibid., para. 5.10.
ibid., chapter 3.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Costs and Benefits of Protection, Paris, September, 1985.
ibid., p. 7.
Report of the Committee of Review on Offsets, op. cit., p. 19.
G. M. Grossman, ‘The theory of domestic content protection and content preference’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 96, 4, 1981, p. 583.
Studies of the economics of content protection include the works of G.M. Grossman, ibid; M. Mussa, The Economics of Content Protection, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 1457, September 1984; Industries Assistance Commission, Local Content Schemes: a Technical Analysis, Working Paper, July 1984; and of government procurement as a protective device include S. S. Joson, Substitutability of ‘Buy Local’ Policy for Tariff Protection in Small Economies, Working Papers in Economics No. 78, University of Sydney, January 1985; P.G. Warr and B.R. Parmenter, Protection through Government Procurement, Discussion Paper No. 91, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra, March 1984.
Industries Assistance Commission, ibid., p. 1. This paper reports on an analysis of the effects of local content requirements (under which it considers purchasing policy and its offsets provisions), which it assesses to have an equivalent protective effect to a combination of quota and subsidy.
The Australian Government Offsets Program, op. cit., para. 5.3(b).
Writers on the markets-hierarchies paradigm include, e.g., J. H. Dunning, ‘Trade, location of economic activity and the multinational enterprise: a search for an eclectic approach’ in International Production and the Multinational Enterprise, Allen and Unwin, London, 1981; O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications, Free Press, New York, 1975; D. J. Teece, ‘The multinational enterprise: market failure and market power considerations’, Sloan Management Review, 22, 3, 1981, pp. 3–17; A. L. Calvet, ‘A synthesis of foreign direct investment theories and theories of the multinational firm’, Journal of International Business Studies, 12, 1, 1981, pp. 43–59; S. Hirsch, ‘An international trade and investment theory of the firm’, Oxford Economic Papers, 28, 2, 1976, pp. 258–70; T.G. Parry, ‘International technology transfer: emerging corporate strategies’, Prometheus, 2, 2, 1984, pp. 220–32; R.E. Baldwin, ‘The international firm and efficient economic allocation: international trade in inputs and outputs’, American Economic Review, 60, 2, 1970, pp. 430–4; P.J. Buckley, ‘New theories of international business: some unresolved issues’ in M. Casson (ed.), The Growth of International Business, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1983, chapter 2.
Contributors to this theory include, e.g., A. Jacquemin, ‘Imperfect market structure and international trade — some recent research’, Kyklos, 35, 1, 1982, pp. 75–93; P. R. Krugman, ‘New theories of trade among industrial countries’, American Economic Review, 73, 2, May 1983, pp. 343–7; B.J. Spencer and J.A. Brander, ‘International trade policy for oligopolistic industries’, Economic Journal, 94, 1984, pp. 1–16; J. R. Markusen, ‘Trade and the gains from trade with imperfect competition’, Journal of International Economics, 11, 4, 1981, pp. 531–51.
J. Ray in J. Starrels, Countertrade, US Office of Information, 1983, (mimeo.)
J.I. Walsh, Mandated Countertrade: Methods and Issues, Staff Paper No. 16, National Center for Export-Import Studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC, 1985.
Contributors on this theme include, e.g., K. Lancaster, ‘Intra-industry trade under perfect monopolistic competition’, Journal of International Economics, 10, 1980, pp. 151–75; E. Helpman, ‘International trade in the presence of product differentiation, economies of scale and monopolistic competition’, Journal of International Economics, 11, 1981, pp. 305–40; W. J. Ethier, ‘National and international returns to scale in the modern theory of international trade’, American Economic Review, 72, 3, 1982, pp. 389–405; P. R. Krugman, ‘Scale economies, product differentiation, and the pattern of trade’, American Economic Review, 70, 5, 1980, pp. 950–9.