IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/brikps/1937.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Tale of Two Tariff Commissions and One Dubious ¿Globalization Backlash?

Author

Listed:
  • Meardon, Stephen

Abstract

During much of the previous era of globalization, from the 1860s until the First World War, U.S. tariffs were surprisingly high. Present-day economic historians have suggested that U.S. protection as the result of a backlash against globalization that was the beginning of its decline. They have also argued that the backlash holds a lesson for the present: specifically, that we must attend to the distributive inequities that globalization engenders, or else globalization will again plant the seeds of its own destruction. I show that U.S. tariffs were not the product of backlash. A history of economic ideas in the nineteenth century United States, centered on two tariff commissions in 1866-1870 and 1882, reveals that the ideas debated in intellectual and policy circles alike bore no trace of globalization backlash. The important feature of U.S. intellectual and tariff policy history is not globalization backlash, but rather the absence from most historical accounts of certain thinkers and ideas that were crucial to the debate. Accordingly, the lesson that history holds for the present is not that we must attend to globalization's inequities. (That lesson is likely to stand or fall apart from history.) Instead it is that we need to attend to the /idea/ of backlash, which has a foothold in history that is deeper than the evidence. The lesson implies that to understand the present and future of globalization, what are required are histories of ideas.

Suggested Citation

  • Meardon, Stephen, 2006. "A Tale of Two Tariff Commissions and One Dubious ¿Globalization Backlash?," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1937, Inter-American Development Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:1937
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/A-Tale-of-Two-Tariff-Commissions-and-One-Dubious-%C2%BFGlobalization-Backlash.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maurice Obstfeld & Alan M. Taylor, 2003. "Globalization and Capital Markets," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization in Historical Perspective, pages 121-188, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ronald Findlay & Kevin H. O'Rourke, 2003. "Commodity Market Integration, 1500-2000," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization in Historical Perspective, pages 13-64, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Barry Chiswick & Timothy J. Hatton, 2003. "International Migration and the Integration of Labor Markets," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization in Historical Perspective, pages 65-120, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Antoni Estevadeordal & Brian Frantz & Alan M. Taylor, 2003. "The Rise and Fall of World Trade, 1870–1939," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 359-407.
    5. Bolton, R., 1993. "What Power on Earth? Arthur Latham Perry's Reaction to Henry George," Department of Economics Working Papers 162, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    6. Handlin, Oscar, 1943. "Laissez-Faire Thought in Massachusetts, 1790–1880," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(S1), pages 55-65, January.
    7. Kevin H. O'Rourke & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2001. "Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262650592, April.
    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. Stephen Meardon, 2006. "Hacia un envejecimiento responsable: Las reformas de los sistemas pensionales América Latina," Research Department Publications 4312, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    2. Kevin H. O'Rourke & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2002. "From Malthus to Ohlin: Trade, Growth and Distribution Since 1500," CEG Working Papers 20023, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    3. Alan M. Taylor, 2002. "Globalization, Trade, and Development: Some Lessons From History," NBER Working Papers 9326, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Timothy J. Hatton & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2002. "What Fundamentals Drive World Migration?," NBER Working Papers 9159, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Anna Maria Mayda, 2006. "Who Is Against Immigration? A Cross-Country Investigation of Individual Attitudes toward Immigrants," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 510-530, August.
    6. Kevin H. O'Rourke, 2002. "Globalization and Inequality: Historical Trends," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 57(01), pages 65-104, March.
    7. Matthias Morys & Guillaume Daudin & Kevin H. O'Rourke, 2008. "Globalization, 1870-1914," Economics Series Working Papers 395, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. Oded Galor & Andrew Mountford, 2008. "Trading Population for Productivity: Theory and Evidence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(4), pages 1143-1179.
    9. Hatton, Timothy J. & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 2008. "The Impact of Immigration: Comparing Two Global Eras," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 345-361, March.
    10. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6145 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6145 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Jopp, Tobias A., 2017. "How does the public perceive alliances? The Central and Allied Powers in World War I," IBF Paper Series 12-17, IBF – Institut für Bank- und Finanzgeschichte / Institute for Banking and Financial History, Frankfurt am Main.
    13. Gabriel J Felbermayr & Wilhelm Kohler, 2014. "Immigration and Native Welfare," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: European Economic Integration, WTO Membership, Immigration and Offshoring, chapter 10, pages 335-372, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Kevin H. O'Rourke, 2003. "The Era of Free Migration: Lessons for Today," Trinity Economics Papers 200315, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    15. Thomas Philippon, 2015. "Has the US Finance Industry Become Less Efficient? On the Theory and Measurement of Financial Intermediation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1408-1438, April.
    16. Meissner, Christopher M., 2014. "Growth from Globalization? A View from the Very Long Run," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 8, pages 1033-1069, Elsevier.
    17. James E. Anderson & Eric van Wincoop, 2004. "Trade Costs," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 691-751, September.
    18. Giovanni Facchini & Anna Maria Mayda, 2008. "From individual attitudes towards migrants to migration policy outcomes: Theory and evidence [‘Immigration policy, assimilation of immigrants and natives’ sentiments towards immigrants: Evidence fr," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 23(56), pages 652-713.
    19. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2007. "Is Financial Globalization Beneficial?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(2-3), pages 259-294, March.
    20. Pavlidis, Efthymios G. & Paya, Ivan & Peel, David A., 2011. "Real exchange rates and time-varying trade costs," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1157-1179, October.
    21. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/6145 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Timothy J. Hatton, 2010. "The Cliometrics Of International Migration: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 941-969, December.
    23. Kevin H. O’Rourke, 2002. "Europe and the Causes of Globalization, 1790 to 2000," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Henryk Kierzkowski (ed.), Europe and Globalization, chapter 3, pages 64-86, Palgrave Macmillan.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    WP-476;

    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:idb:brikps:1937. 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: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.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.