Hostname: page-component-669899f699-g7b4s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-24T15:53:23.350Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tariff Incidence in America's Gilded Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2007

Douglas A. Irwin
Douglas A. Irwin
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Economics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755. E-mail: douglas.irwin@dartmouth.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, the United States imposed high tariffs to protect domestic manufacturers from foreign competition. This article examines the magnitude of protection given to import-competing producers and the costs imposed on export-oriented producers by focusing on changes in the domestic prices of traded goods relative to nontraded goods. The results suggest that the 30 percent average import tariff gave about a 17 percent implicit subsidy to import-competing producers and effectively taxed exporters at about 10 percent. Tariffs redistributed large amounts of income (about 8 percent of GDP), but the effect on consumers was roughly neutral.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , September 2007 , pp. 582 - 607
Copyright
© 2007 The Economic History Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Anderson James E. “Effective Protection Redux.” Journal of International Economics 44 (February 1998): 21–44.Google Scholar
Choi Kwang-Ho, and Tracey A. Cumming. “Who Pays for Protection in Australia?” Economic Record 62 (December 1986): 490–96.Google Scholar
Clements Kenneth W., and Larry A. Sjaastad. How Protection Taxes Exporters. Thames Essay No. 39. London: Trade Policy Research Centre, 1984.
Corden W. M. The Theory of Protection. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
David Paul and Peter Solar. “A Bicentenary Contribution to the History of the Cost of Living in America.” In Research in Economic History, edited by Paul Uselding, pp. 1–88. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1977.
DeLong J. Bradford. “Trade Policy and America's Standard of Living: An Historical Perspective.” In Imports, Exports, and the American Worker, edited by Susan Collins, pp. 349–76. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1998.
Devereux John and Michael Connolly. “Commercial Policy, the Terms of Trade, and the Real Exchange Rate Revisited.” Journal of Development Economics 50 (June 1996): 81–99.Google Scholar
Dornbusch Rudiger. “Tariffs and Nontraded Goods.” Journal of International Economics 4 (May 1974): 177–85.Google Scholar
Engle Robert E., and Clive W. J. Granger. “Cointegration and Error-Correction: Representation, Estimation, and Testing.” Econometrica 55 (March 1987): 251–76.Google Scholar
Gallman Robert E. “Commodity Output, 1839–1899.” In Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, edited by William Parker, pp. 13–67. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (for NBER), 1960.
Gallman Robert E., and Thomas J. Weiss. “The Service Industries in the Nineteenth Century.” In Production and Productivity in the Service Industries, edited by Victor Fuchs, pp. 287–352. New York: Columbia University Press (for NBER), 1969.
Greenaway David and Chris Milner. Trade and Industrial Policy in Developing Countries. London: Macmillan, 1993.
Grosvenor W. M. Does Protection Protect? New York: Appleton, 1871.
Harley C. Knick. “The Antebellum American Tariff: Food Exports and Manufacturing.” Explorations in Economic History 29 (October 1992): 375–400.Google Scholar
Hawke G. R. “The United States Tariff and Industrial Production in the Late Nineteenth Century.” Economic History Review 28 (February 1975): 84–99.Google Scholar
Head Keith. “Infant Industry Protection in the Steel Rail Industry.” Journal of International Economics 37 (November 1994): 141–65.Google Scholar
Irwin Douglas A. “Did Late Nineteenth Century U.S. Tariffs Promote Infant Industries? Evidence from the Tinplate Industry.” This Journal 60, no. 2 (2000): 335–60.Google Scholar
Irwin Douglas A. “Could the United States Iron Industry Have Survived Free Trade after the Civil War?” Explorations in Economic History 37 (July 2000): 278–99.Google Scholar
Irwin Douglas A. “Trade Restrictiveness and the Deadweight Loss from U.S. Tariffs, 1859–1961.” NBER Working Paper, forthcoming 2007.
James John A. “The Welfare Effects of the Antebellum Tariff: A General Equilibrium Analysis.” Explorations in Economic History 15 (July 1978): 231–56.Google Scholar
Johnston Louis D., and Samuel H. Williamson. “The Annual Real and Nominal GDP for the United States, 1790–Present.” Economic History Services, October 2005, URL: http://www.eh.net/hmit/gdp/.
Lipsey Robert E. Price and Quantity Trends in the Foreign Trade of the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963.
McDougall I. A. “Tariffs and Relative Prices.” Economic Record 42 (June 1966): 219–42.Google Scholar
North Douglass C. The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790–1860. New York: W. W. Norton, 1966.
Phillips P. C. B., and S. Ouliaris. “Asymptotic Properties of Residual Based Tests for Cointegration.” Econometrica 58 (January 1990): 165–93.Google Scholar
Pope Clayne. “The Impact of the Ante-Bellum Tariff on Income Distribution.” Explorations in Economic History 9 (Summer 1972): 375–421.Google Scholar
Reitano Joanne R. The Tariff Question in the Gilded Age: The Great Debate of 1888. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994.
Ruffin Roy and Ronald Jones. “Protection and Real Wages: The Neoclassical Ambiguity.” Journal of Economic Theory 14 (April, 1977): 337–48.Google Scholar
Simon Matthew. “The United States Balance of Payments, 1861–1900.” In Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, edited by William N. Parker, pp. 629–711. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (for NBER), 1960.
Sjaastad Larry. “Commercial Policy, ‘True Tariffs’ and Relative Prices.” In Current Issues in Commercial Policy and Diplomacy, edited by John Black and Brian Hindley, pp. 26–51. New York: St Martin's Press, 1980.
Taussig Frank. “Wages and Prices in Relation to International Trade.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 20 (August 1906): 497–522.Google Scholar
Temin Peter. The Jacksonian Economy. New York: Norton, 1969.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States. Washington, DC: GPO, 1975.
Ward Marianne and John Devereux. “Measuring British Decline: Direct versus Long-Span Income Measures.” This Journal 63, no. 3 (2003): 826–51.Google Scholar
Wells David A. Report of the Special Commissioner of the Revenue. Senate Executive Document No. 2. 39th Congress, 2d Session. Washington, DC: GPO, 1867.
Williamson Jeffrey G. “The Evolution of Global Labor Markets since 1830: Background Evidence and Hypotheses.” Explorations in Economic History 32 (1995): 141–96.Google Scholar