ABSTRACT
The past several years have witnessed a marked growth in the refining capacity of many foreign crude petroleum suppliers. The possibility of increased US imports of refined petroleum products occurs at a time when various unrelated factors have been causing significant changes in the US refinery industry. This chapter reviews the current problems of the US industry and the expansion of foreign refinery operations. It presents the model of the refined petroleum sector and uses it to measure losses from a gasoline tariff. The chapter measures the value of employment gains from such a tariff. It concludes by comparing the costs of these employments gains with their benefits and finds that their costs to both consumers and to society as a whole are quite substantial.
