Question

Suppose that the production of $500,000 worth of steel in the United States requires $100,000 worth of iron ore. The U.S. nominal tariff rates are 15 percent for steel and 5 percent for iron ore. Given this information, the effective rate of protection for the U.S. steel industry is approximately

Answer 1

The effective rate of protection for the U.S. steel industry is approximately 17.5%

Step-by-step explanation:

Mathematically, the effective rate of protection is calculated as follows;

e = (n-ab)/(1-a)

where n is the nominal tariff rate on the final product , a is the ratio of the value of the imported input to the value of the finished product and b is the nominal tariff rate on the imported input

Mathematically;

a = value of iron ore/value of steel = 100,00/500,000 = 1/5 = 0.2

From the question, we can see that nominal tariff rate for steel n = 15% = 15/100 = 0.15

The nominal rate for iron ore b = 5% = 5/100 = 0.05

So we substitute all of these into the equation of e above

e = {0.15-0.2(0.05)}/(1-0.2) = (0.15-0.01)/0.8 = 0.14/0.8 = 0.175 which is same as 17.5%