Abstract
The analysis of protection by industry is marked by a central conundrum. Empirical analysis suggests that trade policy is highly differentiated across industries and that observed protection is linked to import penetration and industrial decline. Yet analysis of individual-level data finds little evidence that industry of occupation matters for attitudes to trade. What we lack is a simple or satisfying conceptual account that links observed protection to individual preferences through either lobbying or voting. This chapter first summarizes the key findings on the industry-level pattern of protection and then turns to related work on individual attitudes showing the disjuncture described above. It then relates industry-level protection to models based on lobbying, particularly the well-known “protection for sale” model. The chapter concludes with a discussion of contemporary work that builds on or departs from this model, to explain the observed findings for protection by industry.