Returning to Australia, Corden devoted most of his research to tariff policy in that country, inspired by his reading of the Brigden Report and his papers on the cost of protection.
Australian industry was then very heavily protected by tariffs and quotas. Shortly after his return to Australia, Corden gave a major lecture on his suggestions for reforms to Australian protectionism with the aim of reducing its costs.
He advocated two major reforms: (1) quotas should be replaced by tariffs; and (2) tariffs should be shifted gradually towards a uniform ad valorem rate.[179]In order to support his arguments for reform, Corden dug deeply into the logic behind the highly complex Australian system of protection. This led him to stress the issue of tariff escalation and, from this, he made the case for measuring protection in terms of the effective protection rate, that is, protection in relation to value added rather than imports or output.[180]
3.1