Peddling protectionism Irwin, Douglas A
2011., 20110124, 2011, 2017, 2011-01-24, 2017-10-24, 20110101
eBook
The Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, which raised U.S. duties on hundreds of imported goods to record levels, is America's most infamous trade law. It is often associated with--and sometimes blamed ...for--the onset of the Great Depression, the collapse of world trade, and the global spread of protectionism in the 1930s. Even today, the ghosts of congressmen Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley haunt anyone arguing for higher trade barriers; almost single-handedly, they made protectionism an insult rather than a compliment. In Peddling Protectionism, Douglas Irwin provides the first comprehensive history of the causes and effects of this notorious measure, explaining why it largely deserves its reputation for combining bad politics and bad economics and harming the U.S. and world economies during the Depression.
•In the 1950s, many economists encouraged developing countries to adopt a trade strategy based on import substitution.•Yet Raul Prebisch and other proponents were actually surprisingly caution in ...their support for import substitution.•Prebisch and others were also among the first to recognize the shortcomings of import substitution in practice.•By the late 1960s, the problems with import substitution were increasingly apparent and few economists were advocates.
In the 1950s, many economists believed that import substitution – policies to restrict imports of manufactured goods – was the best trade strategy to promote industrialization and economic growth in developing countries. By the mid-1960s, there was widespread disenchantment with the results of such policies, even among its proponents. This paper traces the rise and fall of import substitution as a development idea. Perhaps surprisingly, early advocates of import substitution were quite cautious in their support for the policy and were also among the first to question it based on evidence derived from country experiences.
About two hundred years ago, largely as a result of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations , free trade achieved an intellectual status unrivaled by any other doctrine in the field of economics. What ...accounts for the success of free trade against then prevailing mercantilist doctrines? And how well has free trade withstood various theoretical attacks that have challenged it since Adam Smith's time? In this readable intellectual history, Douglas Irwin explains how the idea of free trade has endured against the tide of the abundant criticisms that have been leveled against it from the ancient world and Adam Smith's day to the present. An accessible, nontechnical look at one of the most important concepts in the field of economics, Against the Tide will allow the reader to put the ever new guises of protectionist thinking into the context of the past and discover why the idea of free trade has so successfully prevailed over time.
Irwin traces the origins of the free trade doctrine from premercantilist times up to Adam Smith and the classical economists. In lucid and careful terms he shows how Smith's compelling arguments in favor of free trade overthrew mercantilist views that domestic industries should be protected from import competition. Once a presumption about the economic benefits of free trade was established, various objections to free trade arose in the form of major arguments for protectionism, such as those relating to the terms of trade, infant industries, increasing returns, wage distortions, income distribution, unemployment, and strategic trade policy. Discussing the contentious historical controversies surrounding each of these arguments, Irwin reveals the serious analytical and practical weaknesses of each, and in the process shows why free trade remains among the most durable and robust propositions that economics has to offer for the conduct of economic policy.
The Genesis of the GATT Irwin, Douglas A.; Mavroidis, Petros C.; Sykes, Alan O.
06/2008
eBook
This book is part of a wider project on the economic logic behind the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). This volume asks: What does the historical record indicate about the aims and ...objectives of the framers of the GATT? Where did the provisions of the GATT come from and how did they evolve through various international meetings and drafts? To what extent does the historical record provide support for one or more of the economic rationales for the GATT? This book examines the motivations and contributions of the two main framers of the GATT, the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as the smaller role of other countries. The framers desired a commercial agreement on trade practices as well as negotiated reductions in trade barriers. Both were sought as a way to expand international trade to promote world prosperity, restrict the use of discriminatory policies to reduce conflict over trade, and thereby establish economic foundations for maintaining world peace.
Abstract Do trade reforms that significantly reduce import barriers lead to faster economic growth? In the twenty-five years since Rodríguez and Rodrik's (2000) critical survey of empirical work on ...this question, new research has tried to overcome the various methodological problems that have plagued previous attempts to provide a convincing answer. I examine three strands of recent work on this issue: cross-country regressions focusing on within-country growth, synthetic control methods on specific reform episodes, and empirical country studies looking at the channels through which lower trade barriers may increase productivity. A consistent finding is that trade reforms have had a positive impact on economic growth, on average, although the effect is heterogeneous across countries. Overall, these research findings should temper some of the previous agnosticism about the empirical link between trade reform and economic performance.
Nitrogen stress is an important control on the growth of phytoplankton and varying responses to this common condition among taxa may affect their relative success within phytoplankton communities. We ...analyzed photosynthetic responses to nitrogen (N) stress in two classes of phytoplankton that often dominate their respective size ranges, diatoms and prasinophytes, selecting species of distinct niches within each class. Changes in photosynthetic structures appeared similar within each class during N stress, but photophysiological and growth responses were more species- or niche-specific. In the coastal diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana and the oceanic diatom T. weissflogii, N starvation induced large declines in photosynthetic pigments and Photosystem II (PSII) quantity and activity as well as increases in the effective absorption cross-section of PSII photochemistry (σ'PSII). These diatoms also increased photoprotection through energy-dependent non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) during N starvation. Resupply of N in diatoms caused rapid recovery of growth and relaxation of NPQ, while recovery of PSII photochemistry was slower. In contrast, the prasinophytes Micromonas sp., an Arctic Ocean species, and Ostreococcus tauri, a temperate coastal eutrophile, showed little change in photosynthetic pigments and structures and a decline or no change, respectively, in σ'PSII with N starvation. Growth and PSII function recovered quickly in Micromonas sp. after resupply of N while O. tauri failed to recover N-replete levels of electron transfer from PSII and growth, possibly due to their distinct photoprotective strategies. O. tauri induced energy-dependent NPQ for photoprotection that may suit its variable and nutrient-rich habitat. Micromonas sp. relies upon both energy-dependent NPQ and a sustained, energy-independent NPQ mechanism. A strategy in Micromonas sp. that permits photoprotection with little change in photosynthetic structures is consistent with its Arctic niche, where low temperatures and thus low biosynthetic rates create higher opportunity costs to rebuild photosynthetic structures.
Taiwan was the first developing country to adopt an export‐oriented trade strategy after World War II. The factors usually associated with big shifts in policy—a macroeconomic crisis, a change in ...political power or institutions, lobbying by export interests, pressure from international financial institutions—were not present; it was ideas that were key. In 1954, economist S. C. Tsiang proposed that Taiwan boost export earnings rather than squeeze import spending to deal with its chronic shortage of foreign exchange. He recommended a currency devaluation to establish a realistic exchange rate and a market‐based system of foreign exchange allocation to end the inefficient rationing by the government. Four years later, a policymaker, K. Y. Yin, fought for the adoption of Tsiang's proposal, helping to clear the way for Taiwan's phenomenal growth in trade.
The 1980s and 1990s saw a policy revolution in developing countries in which many highly protected (if not closed) economies were opened to world trade. These reforms were largely undertaken ...unilaterally, but international economic institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization supported these efforts. This paper examines the ways in which these institutions promoted, or failed to promote, trade policy reform during this pivotal period.
Ranking among the most distinguished economists and scholars of his generation, Jacob Viner is best remembered for his work in international economics and in the history of economic thought. Mark ...Blaug, in his Great Economists Since Keynes (Cambridge, 1985) remarked that Viner was "quite simply the greatest historian of economic thought that ever lived." Never before, however, have Viner's important contributions to the intellectual history of economics been collected into one convenient volume. This book performs this valuable service to scholarship by reprinting Viner's classic essays on such topics as Adam Smith and laissez-faire, the intellectual history of laissez-faire, and power versus plenty as an objective of foreign policy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Also included are Viner's penetrating and previously unpublished Wabash College lectures. "Jacob Viner was one of the truly great economists of this century as both teacher and scholar. This collection .. covers a wide range with special emphasis on the history of thought. Today's economists will find the essays just as thought-provoking and as illuminating as did his contemporaries. They have aged very well indeed."--Milton Friedman, Hoover Institution "Jacob Viner was a great and original economic theorist. What is rarer, Viner was a learned scholar. What is still rarer, Viner was a wise scientist. This new anthology of his writings on intellectual history is worth having in every economist's library--to sample at intervals over the years in the reasoned hope that Viner's wisdom will rub off on the reader and for the pleasure of his writing."--Paul A. Samuelson, MIT "I am frankly jealous of those who will be reading Viner's essays for the first time, marvelling at his learning, amused by his dry wit, instructed by his wisdom. But although I cannot share their joy of discovery, I shall be able to savor the subtleties that emerge from rereading these splendid essays."--George J. Stigler, University of Chicago "This volume will be a treat for the reader who appreciates scholarship, felicitous use of language, and the workings of a great mind. The Wabash lectures are gems, and the introduction by Douglas Irwin contributes significantly to our understanding of Viner's accomplishments."--William J. Baumol, Princeton University/New York University
Originally published in 1991.
ThePrinceton Legacy Libraryuses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Ocean acidification is changing the nature of inorganic carbon availability in the global oceans. Diatoms account for ~ 40% of all marine primary productivity and are major contributors to the export ...of atmospheric carbon to the deep ocean. Larger diatoms are more likely to be stimulated by future increases in CO₂ availability as a result of their low surface area to volume ratio and lower diffusive flux of CO₂ relative to their carbon demand for growth. Here we quantify the effect of the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (PCO₂), at levels of 190, 380, and 750 μL L−1, on the growth rate, photosystem II electron transport rate (ETR), and elemental composition for five diatom species ranging over five orders of magnitude in cell volume. Growth rates for all species were enhanced under 750 relative to 190 and 380 μL L−1, with little change in ETR or elemental stoichiometries, indicating an enhanced allocation of photochemical energy to growth under elevated PCO₂. PCO₂ enhancement of growth rates was size dependent. Under 750 vs. 190 mL L21 partial pressures, growth rate was enhanced by , 5% for the smaller diatom species to ~ 30% for the largest species examined. The size dependence of CO₂-stimulated growth enhancement indicates that ocean acidification may selectively favor an increase in the growth rates of larger vs. smaller phytoplankton species in the sea, with potentially significant consequences for carbon biochemistry.
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