IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/nbr/nberch/6899.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

From Smoot-Hawley to Reciprocal Trade Agreements: Changing the Course of U.S. Trade Policy in the 1930s

In: The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas A. Irwin

Abstract

Four years after passing the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff in 1930, Congress enacted the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (RTAA), which gave the president the authority to undertake tariff-reduction agreements (without Congressional approval) with foreign countries. The resulting trade agreements reduced U.S. tariffs and culminated in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947. Was the Great Depression responsible for bringing about this fundamental shift in U.S. trade policy? This paper analyzes the changes in U.S. trade policy during this period and argues that (i) the Depression as an international phenomenon motivated the unprecedented Congressional delegation of tariff-making powers, (ii) economic changes more the result of World War II than the Depression blunted Republican opposition to the RTAA and ensured its post-war survival.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas A. Irwin, 1998. "From Smoot-Hawley to Reciprocal Trade Agreements: Changing the Course of U.S. Trade Policy in the 1930s," NBER Chapters, in: The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century, pages 325-352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:6899
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6899.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Crucini, Mario J. & Kahn, James, 1996. "Tariffs and aggregate economic activity: Lessons from the Great Depression," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 427-467, December.
    2. 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.
    3. Nelson, Douglas, 1989. "Domestic Political Preconditions of US Trade Policy: Liberal Structure and Protectionist Dynamics," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 83-108, January.
    4. Haggard, Stephan, 1988. "The institutional foundations of hegemony: explaining the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 91-119, January.
    5. Crucini, Mario J, 1994. "Sources of Variation in Real Tariff Rates: The United States, 1900-1940," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 732-743, June.
    6. Lee, Chung H., 1996. "Financial deregulation and integration in East Asia : edited by Takatoshi Ito and Anne O. Krueger, NBER-East Asia Seminar on Economics VoL 5, Chicago and London: National Bureau of Economic Research a," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 785-787.
    7. Canzoneri,Matthew & Ethier,Wilfred & Grilli,Vittorio (ed.), 1996. "The New Transatlantic Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521562058, October.
    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. Paola Conconi & Giovanni Facchini & Maurizio Zanardi, 2012. "Fast-Track Authority and International Trade Negotiations," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 146-189, August.
    2. Jieun Lee & Iain Osgood, 2018. "Exports, Jobs, Growth! Congressional Hearings on US Trade Agreements," Working Papers 667, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.

    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. 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.
    2. Irwin, Douglas A & Kroszner, Randall S, 1999. "Interests, Institutions, and Ideology in Securing Policy Change: The Republican Conversion to Trade Liberalization after Smoot-Hawley," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 643-673, October.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Crucini, Mario J. & Kahn, James, 1996. "Tariffs and aggregate economic activity: Lessons from the Great Depression," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 427-467, December.
    6. Eric Bond & Mario Crucini & Joel Rodrigue & Tristan Potter, 2013. "Misallocation and Productivity Effects of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 120-134, January.
    7. Bordo, Michael D., 1996. "Log-rolling, partisanship, and economic interest in the passage of the Hawley-Smoot tariff A comment," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 201-205, December.
    8. Yoshiyasu Ono, 2010. "Trade Policy, Exchange Rate Adjustment and Unemployment," Chapters, in: Noel Gaston & Ahmed M. Khalid (ed.), Globalization and Economic Integration, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Douglas A. Irwin, 2019. "U.S. Trade Policy in Historical Perspective," NBER Working Papers 26256, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Schlör, Holger & Venghaus, Sandra, 2022. "Measuring resilience in the food-energy-water nexus based on ethical values and trade relations," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 323(C).
    11. 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.
    12. John Kunkel, 1998. "Realism and Postwar US Trade Policy," Asia Pacific Economic Papers 285, Australia-Japan Research Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    13. 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.
    14. Mario J. Crucini & James Kahn, 2003. "Tariffs and the Great Depression Revisited," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0316, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    15. Jakob B. Madsen, 2001. "Trade Barriers and the Collapse of World Trade During the Great Depression," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(4), pages 848-868, April.
    16. 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.
    17. I.Igal Magendzo, 2002. "Are Devaluations Really Contractionary?," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 182, Central Bank of Chile.
    18. Gulan, Adam & Haavio, Markus & Kilponen, Juha, 2021. "Can large trade shocks cause crises? The case of the Finnish–Soviet trade collapse," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    19. James MacGee & Chris Hajzler, 2012. "Retail Price Differences across U.S. and Canadian Cities during the Interwar Period," 2012 Meeting Papers 1126, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Bodea, Cristina, 2015. "Fixed exchange rates with escape clauses: The political determinants of the European Monetary System realignments," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 25-40.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • N72 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

    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:nbr:nberch:6899. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.