The timing of protectionism

Abstract

The development of a new data set on the 1800–1990 average nominal tariff rates of five of the system's most important traders (Britain, France, the United States, Germany and Japan) permits a new empirical examination of alternative explanations of protectionism. Seven models, with various emphases on hegemony, business cycles, war shocks and economic growth, are used to generate nine schedules of expected changes in the direction of tariff rates. Correlations of the expected schedules with the observed directional shifts demonstrate clearly the timing superiority of explanations based on long wave and external shock emphases. Yet even the strongest performing models do less well at levels of analysis other than the system level. Greater model elaboration, it is concluded, is needed to better account for processes at work in different subsystems.

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