ABSTRACT
The accumulation of empirical evidence relating to the costs of protection/benefits of liberalization was a factor. Evidence on the former was certainly comprehensive and also fairly convincing. Several inf luential cross-country studies (Krueger, 1981; Balassa, 1982), together with a multitude of country-specific studies, emphasized the consequences of longterm reliance on import substitution regimes in the form of high and complex patterns of protection, high resource costs, pervasive rent-seeking behaviour, poor macroeconomic performance and stagnating growth (see Greenaway and Milner, 1993).
