Overall Assistance to German Industry

Abstract

This chapter¹ has four aims: First, it surveys the assistance given to individual sectors of West German industry and attempts to calculate its magnitude in terms of nominal and effective rates of protection. By contrast to the study in Chapter 2, the calculations presented here are less detailed but deal with protection in a wider context since they include all measures of non-tariff assistance and relate industrial protection to protection given to other areas of the economy. The second section discusses the origins and objectives of, as well as the obstacles to, an improved assistance policy. The third section presents an analysis of the impact which assistance measures have had on resource allocation among industries. Finally, some conclusions for formulating assistance policy are drawn.