How Much Trade Liberalization Was There in the World Before and After Cobden-Chevalier?
01 Sep 2012-The Journal of Economic History (Cambridge University Press)-Vol. 72, Iss: 03, pp 708-740
TL;DR: The Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860 is regarded as central turning point in nineteenth-century trade policy, inaugurating a free trade era in Western Europe.
Abstract: The Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860 is regarded as central turning point in nineteenth-century trade policy, inaugurating a free trade era in Western Europe. We reexamine this story and put it into global perspective with a new database covering more than 7,500 data points for 11 categories of manufactures in 41 countries and colonies around the world between 1846 and 1880. It reveals that bilateralism after 1860 reinforced a process already underway before. Nevertheless, we highlight that trade liberalization was a global phenomenon over most of our period, so that the prominent British case appears as typical rather than exceptional.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: O'Rourke and Findlay as discussed by the authors discuss trade, war, and world economy in the second millenium, focusing on the power and plenty of people in the United States.
Abstract: Review of Kevin O'Rourke and Ronald Findlay "Power and plenty. Trade, war and world economy in the second millenium"
127 citations
TL;DR: The transformation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into the World Trade Organization (WTO) on January 1, 1995, provides an opportune moment to take stock of the GATT's achievements and shortcomings alongside those of its 50-year-old sister international institutions set up at Bretton Woods as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The transformation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into the World Trade Organization (WTO) on January 1, 1995, provides an opportune moment to take stock of the GATT's achievements and shortcomings alongside those of its 50-year-old sister international institutions set up at Bretton Woods. It is temptingly easy to attribute the astounding postwar economic expansion, particularly when set against the turbulent interwar period when multilateral efforts to contain protectionist pressures failed miserably, to the economic policies embodied in the GATT and to the initial stability provided by the Bretton Woods institutions. Yet a closer look at precisely what the GATT accomplished in its first decade suggests that trade liberalization under its auspices alone is far from sufficient to explain the postwar economic boom.
95 citations
TL;DR: The Economic History of Latin America since Independence as mentioned in this paper provides a comprehensive, balanced portrait of the factors affecting economic development in Latin America, taking its narrative from the end of the colonial epoch to the present.
68 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the impact of trade liberalization on government revenues and found that trade liberalisation led to larger and longer-lived declines in tax revenues in developing countries since 1970 than in today's rich countries in the 19th and 20th centuries.
62 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the relationship between economic growth and agricultural tariffs, industrial tariffs, and revenue tariffs for a sample of relatively well-developed countries between 1875 and 1913, and found that industrial tariffs were positively correlated with growth, and agriculture tariffs were generally negatively correlated with economic growth.
Abstract: Many papers have explored the relationship between average tariff rates and economic growth when theory suggests that the structure of protection is what should matter. We therefore explore the relationship between economic growth and agricultural tariffs, industrial tariffs, and revenue tariffs for a sample of relatively well-developed countries between 1875 and 1913. Industrial tariffs were positively correlated with growth, and agricultural tariffs were generally negatively correlated with growth, although the results are not robust. Revenue tariffs were not related to growth at all.
58 citations
References
More filters
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide indicators of trade restrictiveness that include both measures of tariff and nontariff barriers for 91 developing and industrial countries, including India, China, and Brazil.
Abstract: The objective of this paper is to provide indicators of trade restrictiveness that include both measures of tariff and nontariff barriers for 91 developing and industrial countries. For each country, the authors estimate three trade restrictiveness indices. The first one summarizes the degree of trade distortions that each country imposes on itself through its own trade policies. The second one focuses on the trade distortions imposed by each country on its import bundle. The last index focuses on market access and summarizes the trade distortions imposed by the rest of the world on each country's export bundle. All indices are estimated for the broad aggregates of manufacturing and agriculture products. Results suggest that poor countries (and those with the highest poverty headcount) tend to be more restrictive, but they also face the highest trade barriers on their export bundle. This is partly explained by the fact that agriculture protection is generally larger than manufacturing protection. Nontariff barriers contribute more than 70 percent on average to world protection, underlying their importance for any study on trade protection.
1,009 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: O'Rourke and Williamson as discussed by the authors present a coherent picture of trade, migration, and international capital flows in the Atlantic economy in the century prior to 1914, the first great globalization boom.
Abstract: Globalization is not a new phenomenon; nor is it irreversible. In Globalization and History, Kevin O'Rourke and Jeffrey Williamson present a coherent picture of trade, migration, and international capital flows in the Atlantic economy in the century prior to 1914--the first great globalization boom. The book's originality lies in its application of the tools of open-economy economics to this critical historical period--differentiating it from most previous work, which has been based on closed-economy or single-sector models. The authors also keep a close eye on globalization debates of the 1990s, using history to inform the present and vice versa.
908 citations
Book•
01 Nov 1992
TL;DR: An introduction to the intricacies of the world trading system, including the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) is given in this paper, where the authors identify the features and precedents of GATT, analyzes the interconnections between GATT and US constitutional and trade laws and evaluates its future.
Abstract: An introduction to the intricacies of the world trading system, including the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). The text identifies the features and precedents of the GATT, analyzes the interconnections between the GATT and US constitutional and trade laws and evaluates its future.
342 citations
TL;DR: Bairoch as discussed by the authors deflates twenty commonly held myths about economic history, including that free trade and population growth have historically led to periods of economic growth, and that colonial powers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became rich through the exploitation of the Third World.
Abstract: Paul Bairoch deflates twenty commonly held myths about economic history. Among these myths are that free trade and population growth have historically led to periods of economic growth, and that colonial powers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became rich through the exploitation of the Third World. Bairoch shows that these beliefs are based on insufficient knowledge and wrong interpretations of the history of economies of the United States, Europe, and the Third World, and he re-examines the facts to set the record straight. Bairoch argues that until the early 1960s, the history of international trade of the developed countries was almost entirely one of protectionism rather than a "Golden Era" of free trade, and he reveals that, in fact, past periods of economic growth in the Western World correlated strongly with protectionist policy. He also demonstrates that developed countries did not exploit the Third World for raw materials during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as some economists and many politicians have held. Among the many other myths that Bairoch debunks are beliefs about whether colonization triggered the Industrial Revolution, the effects of the economic development of the West on the Third World, and beliefs about the 1929 crash and the Great Depression. Bairoch's lucid prose makes the book equally accessible to economists of every stripe, as well as to historians, political scientists, and other social scientists.
339 citations