IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5665.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Changes in U.S. Tariffs: Prices or Policies?

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas A. Irwin

Abstract

In the century after the Civil War, roughly two-thirds of U.S. dutiable imports were subject to specific duties whose ad valorem equivalent was inversely related to the price level. This paper finds that import price fluctuations easily dominate commercial policies (changes in rates of import duty) in bringing about changes in the average U.S. tariff from 1865-1973. About three-quarters of the post-Smoot Hawley decline in U.S. tariffs, for example, can be attributed to higher import prices, the remainder to negotiated reductions in tariff rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas A. Irwin, 1996. "Changes in U.S. Tariffs: Prices or Policies?," NBER Working Papers 5665, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5665
    Note: ITI DAE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5665.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglas A. Irwin, 1998. "The Smoot-Hawley Tariff: A Quantitative Assessment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 326-334, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matthew Slaughter, 2001. "Does trade liberalization converge factor prices? Evidence from the antebellum transportation revolution," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 339-362.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum & Brent Neiman & John Romalis, 2016. "Trade and the Global Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(11), pages 3401-3438, November.
    2. Marc Badia†Miró & Anna Carreras†Marín & Christopher M. Meissner, 2018. "Geography, policy, or productivity? Regional trade in five South American countries, 1910–50," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(1), pages 236-266, February.
    3. Ayberk SEKER & Oktay Kaan HÃœGÃœL, 2021. "How Trade Wars Affect Exports of the Belt and Road Countries: New Evidence from Dynamic Panel Data Analysis," Management and Economics Review, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 6(1), pages 82-98, June.
    4. Gulan, Adam & Haavio, Markus & Kilponen, Juha, 2021. "Can large trade shocks cause crises? The case of the Finnish–Soviet trade collapse," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    5. Duca, John V., 2017. "The Great Depression versus the Great Recession in the U.S.: How fiscal, monetary, and financial polices compare," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 50-64.
    6. Thiemo Fetzer & Carlo Schwarz, 2021. "Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from Trump’s Trade Wars," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1717-1741.
    7. Signorini, Guilherme & Gow, Hamish R. & Peterson, H. Christopher, 2010. "The Development of the Brazilian Bio-electricity Market: An Historical Analysis of the Institutional Changes in the Sugarcane and Electricity Markets," 2010 Annual Meeting, July 25-27, 2010, Denver, Colorado 61621, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Chao, Chi-Chur & Yu, Eden S.H. & Yu, Wusheng, 2009. "Government Budget, Public-Sector Wages, and Corporate Taxes in a Small Open Economy," Conference papers 331917, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    9. Hillebrand Evan E & Lewer Joshua J. & Zagardo Janice Turtora, 2011. "Backtracking from Globalization," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 10(4), pages 1-19, January.
    10. Boffa, Mauro & Olarreaga, Marcelo, 2012. "Protectionism during the crisis: Tit-for-tat or chicken-games?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 746-749.
    11. Antoine Bouet, 2010. "Assessing the potential cost of a failed Doha round," Larefi Working Papers 201001, Larefi, Université Bordeaux 4.
    12. Eric Bond & Mario Crucini & Joel Rodrigue & Tristan Potter, 2013. "Misallocation and Productivity Effects of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 120-134, January.
    13. Bown,Chad P. & Crowley,Meredith A & Bown,Chad P. & Crowley,Meredith A, 2016. "The empirical landscape of trade policy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7620, The World Bank.
    14. Albers, Thilo Nils Hendrik, 2018. "The prelude and global impact of the Great Depression: Evidence from a new macroeconomic dataset," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 150-163.
    15. Paola Conconi, 2009. "The EU Common Commercial Policy and Global/Regional Trade Regulation," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/13344, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    16. Kyle Handley & Fariha Kamal & Ryan Monarch, 2020. "Rising Import Tariffs, Falling Export Growth: When Modern Supply Chains Meet Old-Style Protectionism," Working Papers 676, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    17. Nina Boberg-Fazlic & Markus Lampe & Maja Uhre Pedersen & Paul Sharp, 2021. "Pandemics and protectionism: evidence from the “Spanish” flu," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    18. Vellore Arthi & Markus Lampe & Ashwin Nair & Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke, 2024. "Deliberate Surrender? The Impact of Interwar Indian Protection," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(657), pages 23-47.
    19. Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke, 2018. "Two Great Trade Collapses: The Interwar Period and Great Recession Compared," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 66(3), pages 418-439, September.
    20. Schlör, Holger & Venghaus, Sandra, 2022. "Measuring resilience in the food-energy-water nexus based on ethical values and trade relations," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 323(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • N72 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5665. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.