Trade Restrictiveness and Deadweight Losses from U.S. Tariffs, 1859-1961

Douglas A. Irwin

32 citations0/0 files storedNational Bureau of Economic Research

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Global trade and economics Historical Economic and Social Studies Economic and Fiscal Studies

Abstract

This paper calculates the Anderson-Neary (2005) trade restrictiveness index (TRI) for the United States using nearly a century of data.The results show that the standard import-weighted average tariff understates the TRI, defined as the uniform tariff that yields the same welfare loss as the existing tariff structure, by about 75 percent.The static deadweight welfare loss from the U.S. tariff structure is about one percent of GDP after the Civil War, but falls almost continuously thereafter to less than one-tenth of one percent of GDP by the early 1960s.On average, import duties resulted in a welfare loss of 40 cents for every dollar of revenue generated, slightly higher than contemporary estimates of the marginal welfare cost of taxation.

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References

2008The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society 2002Trade Liberalization, Exit, and Productivity Improvements: Evidence from Chilean Plants 2000Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic's Guide to the Cross-National Evidence 2008Estimating Trade Restrictiveness Indices 1993Trade Liberalization and the Theory of Endogenous Protection: An Econometric Study of U.S. Import Policy n.d.General Equilibrium Computations of the Marginal Welfare Costs of Taxes in the United States.2008Import Demand Elasticities and Trade Distortions 2008Optimal Tariffs and Market Power: The Evidence

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