IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scotjp/v66y2019i5p703-711.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The growth of manufacturing protection in 1920s Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Brian D. Varian

Abstract

Prior to the Import Duties Act of 1932, an assortment of legislation expanded the scope of manufacturing protection in Britain. This article assesses the magnitude of manufacturing protection before the Import Duties Act and finds that, in 1930, 9% of net manufacturing output occurred in a protected industry. In the late 1920s, protected industries exhibited above‐average growth in labour productivity. However, protection was disproportionately extended to newer manufacturing industries, which presented greater potential for productivity growth. This article concludes that protection did not enhance productivity growth in Britain's manufacturing industries in the late 1920s.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian D. Varian, 2019. "The growth of manufacturing protection in 1920s Britain," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 66(5), pages 703-711, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:66:y:2019:i:5:p:703-711
    DOI: 10.1111/sjpe.12223
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/sjpe.12223
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/sjpe.12223?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Kitson & Solomos Solomou & Martin Weale, 1991. "Effective protection and economic recovery in the United Kingdom during the 1930s," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 44(2), pages 328-338, May.
    2. Forrest Capie, 1978. "The British Tariff and Industrial Protection in the 1930's," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 31(3), pages 399-409, August.
    3. Cohen, Benjamin I, 1971. "The Use of Effective Tariffs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(1), pages 128-141, Jan.-Feb..
    4. Derek H. Aldcroft, 1966. "ECONOMIC PROGRESS IN BRITAIN IN THE 1920s," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 13(3), pages 297-316, November.
    5. Alan de Bromhead & Alan Fernihough & Markus Lampe & Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke, 2019. "When Britain Turned Inward: The Impact of Interwar British Protection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(2), pages 325-352, February.
    6. 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.
    7. Crafts, Nicholas, 2012. "British relative economic decline revisited: The role of competition," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 17-29.
    8. Foreman-Peck, J S, 1979. "Tariff Protection and Economies of Scale: The British Motor Industry before 1939," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(2), pages 237-257, July.
    9. H. W. Richardson, 1961. "The New Industries Between The Wars," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 360-384.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brian D. Varian, 2024. "The unavailing origin of Australian protectionism? Victoria's McCulloch Tariff of 1866," CEH Discussion Papers 08, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    2. Brian D. Varian, 2024. "Market integration and a lower-productivity economy: the case of Australian federation and Queensland’s manufacturing sector, 1897–1906," CEH Discussion Papers 06, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    3. David M Higgins & Brian D Varian, 2021. "Britain’s Empire Marketing Board and the failure of soft trade policy, 1926–33 [Bringing another empire alive? The Empire Marketing Board and the construction of Dominion identity, 1926–1933]," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 25(4), pages 780-805.
    4. Brian D. Varian, 2022. "Imperial preference before the Ottawa Agreements: Evidence from New Zealand's Preferential and Reciprocal Trade Act of 1903," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1214-1241, November.

    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. Crafts, Nicholas, 2012. "Creating Competitive Advantage: Policy Lessons from History," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 91, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    2. Brian D. Varian, 2022. "Imperial preference before the Ottawa Agreements: Evidence from New Zealand's Preferential and Reciprocal Trade Act of 1903," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1214-1241, November.
    3. Joao Paulo Pessoa & John Van Reenen, 2013. "The UK Productivity and Jobs Puzzle: Does the Answer Lie in Labour Market Flexibility?," CEP Reports 31, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Simon P. Lloyd & Solomos Solomou, 2020. "The impact of the 1932 General Tariff: a difference-in-difference approach," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 14(1), pages 41-60, January.
    5. Halmai, Péter, 2024. "Mélyintegráció-paradigma [Deep-integration Paradigm]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(5), pages 514-558.
    6. Lampe, Markus & O’Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj & Reiter, Lorenz & Yotov, Yoto V., 2025. "The Empire project: Trade policy in interwar Canada," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    7. David M Higgins & Brian D Varian, 2021. "Britain’s Empire Marketing Board and the failure of soft trade policy, 1926–33 [Bringing another empire alive? The Empire Marketing Board and the construction of Dominion identity, 1926–1933]," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 25(4), pages 780-805.
    8. Jason Lennard, 2020. "Uncertainty and the Great Slump," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(3), pages 844-867, August.
    9. Nina Boberg-Fazlic & Markus Lampe & Maja Uhre Pedersen & Paul Sharp, 2021. "Pandemics and protectionism: evidence from the “Spanish” flu," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    10. O’Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj, 2019. "Economic History and Contemporary Challenges to Globalization," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(2), pages 356-382, June.
    11. Stephen Broadberry, 2024. "British Economic Growth and Development," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), Handbook of Cliometrics, edition 3, pages 951-986, Springer.
    12. Jonas Ljungberg, 2024. "Competitive devaluations in the 1930s: myth or reality?," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 18(1), pages 151-189, January.
    13. Nicholas Crafts & Pieter Woltjer, 2021. "Growth Accounting In Economic History: Findings, Lessons And New Directions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 670-696, July.
    14. 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.
    15. Crafts, Nicholas & O’Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj, 2014. "Twentieth Century Growth*This research has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement no. 249546.," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 6, pages 263-346, Elsevier.
    16. 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.
    17. Maman Setiawan & Rina Indiastuti & Nury Effendi, 2025. "The relationship between business competition and welfare in Indonesia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 20(1), pages 1-18, January.
    18. Oosterlinck, Kim & Accominotti, Olivier & BRIERE, Marie & Burietz, Aurore & Szafarz, Ariane, 2020. "Did Globalization Kill Contagion?," CEPR Discussion Papers 14395, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Crafts, Nicholas, 2012. "Western Europe’s Growth Prospects: an Historical Perspective," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 71, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    20. Kris James Mitchener & Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke & Kirsten Wandschneider, 2022. "The Smoot-Hawley Trade War," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(647), pages 2500-2533.

    More about this item

    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:bla:scotjp:v:66:y:2019:i:5:p:703-711. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sesssea.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.