IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sip/dpaper/07-001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

U.S. Trade Policy and the Pacific Rim, from Fordney-McCumber to the Trade Expansion Act of 1962: A Political-Economic Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Lei (Sandy) Ye

    (Stanford University)

Abstract

From 1922 to 1962, United States trade policies changed dramatically, marked in the beginning by the heightening of protectionism and then the mobilization toward trade liberalization. The effect of these policies on the Pacific Rim, however, has been little studied. This paper investigates the extent to which U.S. trade policies during this period impacted the Pacific Rim economies differently from the rest of the world. Empirical analysis demonstrates that U.S. trade with the Pacific Rim had consistently higher tariff barriers than U.S. trade with the rest of the world. This paper then analyzes the reasons behind this phenomenon from both a political economy and a historical perspective. On both fronts, the Pacific Rim was at a disadvantage, and its higher barrier to trade with the U.S. was by no means historically accidental.

Suggested Citation

  • Lei (Sandy) Ye, 2007. "U.S. Trade Policy and the Pacific Rim, from Fordney-McCumber to the Trade Expansion Act of 1962: A Political-Economic Analysis," Discussion Papers 07-001, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:sip:dpaper:07-001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-siepr.stanford.edu/repec/sip/07-001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert W. Staiger & Kyle Bagwell, 1999. "An Economic Theory of GATT," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 215-248, March.
    2. Irwin, Douglas A. & Kroszner, Randall S., 1996. "Log-rolling and economic interests in the passage of the Smoot-Hawley tariff," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 173-200, December.
    3. Hayford, Marc & Pasurka, Carl Jr., 1992. "The political economy of the Fordney-McCumber and Smoot-Hawley tariff acts," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 30-50, January.
    4. Jeffrey Frankel & Miles Kahler, 1993. "Regionalism and Rivalry: Japan and the United States in Pacific Asia," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fran93-1, March.
    5. Irwin, Douglas A. & Kroszner, Randall S., 1996. "Log-Rolling and Economic Interests in the Passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff," Working Papers 124, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    6. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Miles Kahler, 1993. "Introduction to "Regionalism and Rivalry: Japan and the United States in Pacific Asia"," NBER Chapters, in: Regionalism and Rivalry: Japan and the United States in Pacific Asia, pages 1-18, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Irwin, Douglas A. & Kroszner, Randall S., 1997. "Interests, Institutions, and Ideology in the Republican Conversion to Trade Liberalization, 1934-1945," Working Papers 137, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    8. Callahan, Colleen M. & McDonald, Judith A. & O'Brien, Anthony Patrick, 1994. "Who Voted For Smoot-Hawley?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(03), pages 683-690, September.
    9. Robert Archibald & David Feldman & Marc Hayford & Carl Pasurka, 2000. "Effective rates of protection and the Fordney-McCumber and Smoot-Hawley Tariff Acts: comment and revised estimates," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(9), pages 1223-1226.
    10. Douglas A. Irwin & Randall S. Kroszner, 1997. "Interests, Institutions, and Ideology in the Republican Conversion to Trade Liberalization, 1934-1945," NBER Working Papers 6112, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Irwin, Douglas A. & Kroszner, Randall S., 1996. "Log-rolling and economic interests in the passage of the Smoot-Hawley tariff," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 173-200, December.
    2. Piriya Pholphirul, 2010. "Does AFTA Create More Trade for Thailand? An Investigation of Some Key Trade Indicators," Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, Institute of Asian Studies, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 29(1), pages 51-78.
    3. Lee, Hiro & Roland-Holst, David W., 1998. "Prelude to the pacific century: Overview of the region, leading issues, and methodology," MPRA Paper 82339, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Alpay, Savas, 2003. "How Can Trade Liberalization Be Conducive to a Better Environment?," Conference papers 331113, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    5. Timini, Jacopo, 2020. "Staying dry on Spanish wine: The rejection of the 1905 Spanish-Italian trade agreement," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Robert J. R. Elliott & Kengo Ikemoto, 2004. "AFTA and the Asian Crisis: Help or Hindrance to ASEAN Intra‐Regional Trade?," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 1-23, March.
    7. Lee, Hiro, 2001. "General equilibrium evaluation of Japan-Singapore free trade agreement," MPRA Paper 82605, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Jong‐Wha Lee & Innwon Park, 2005. "Free Trade Areas in East Asia: Discriminatory or Non‐discriminatory?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 21-48, January.
    9. Ridley, William & Devadoss, Stephen, 2024. "Determinants of Policy Responses in the US–China Tit-for-Tat Trade War," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 0(Preprint), January.
    10. Kris James Mitchener Author e-mail: kmitchener@scu.edu & Kirsten Wandschneider Author e-mail: kirsten.wandschneider@univie.ac.at & Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke Author e-mail: akevin.orourke@nyu.edu, 2021. "The Smoot-Hawley Trade War," Working Papers 20210061, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Mar 2021.
    11. Davis B. Bobrow & Simon Reich & Steve Chan, 1997. "Trade, power and APEC: Hirschman revisited," International Interactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 187-223, August.
    12. Rahul Sen & Sadhana Srivastava & Don Webber, 2015. "Preferential trading agreements and the gravity model in presence of zero and missing trade flows: Early results for China and India," Working Papers 2015-02, Auckland University of Technology, Department of Economics.
    13. Glazer, Amihai & Konrad, Kai A., 1999. "Taxation of rent-seeking activities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 61-72, April.
    14. Sandro Sideri, 1995. "The Economic Relations of China and Asia‐Pacific with Europe," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 13(3), pages 219-246, September.
    15. Irwin, Douglas A. & Kroszner, Randall S., 1996. "Log-Rolling and Economic Interests in the Passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff," Working Papers 124, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    16. Raymond Vernon, 1996. "Passing Through Regionalism: The Transition to Global Markets," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(6), pages 621-633, November.
    17. Aggarwal, Raj & Mougoue, Mbodja, 1998. "Common Stochastic Trends among Asian Currencies: Evidence for Japan, ASEANs, and the Asian Tigers," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 193-206, March.
    18. Richard Pomfret, 2011. "Regional Integration in East Asia," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume I, chapter 16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Rahul Sen & Sadhana Srivastava & Don J Webber, 2015. "Effects of preferential trade agreements in the presence of zero trade flows: the cases of China and India," Working Papers 20151507, Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol.
    20. Kakali Mukhopadhyay & Paul Thomassin, 2010. "Impact of Regional Economic Integration in East Asia," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 125-153.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    world trade; pacific rim; protectionism; liberalization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F19 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sip:dpaper:07-001. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anne Shor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cestaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.