IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7640.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Could the U.S. Iron Industry Have Survived Free Trade After the Civil War?

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas A. Irwin

Abstract

An unresolved question concerning post-Civil War U.S. industrialization is the degree to which import tariffs protected domestic manufacturers from foreign competition. This paper considers the impact of import tariffs on the domestic pig iron industry, the basic building block of the entire iron and steel industry. After reviewing the contentious political debate surrounding the pig iron duties and estimating the elasticity of substitution between domestic and imported pig iron, a standard trade model provides estimates of how tariff reductions would affect domestic prices, production, imports, and welfare. The results suggest that, had the tariff been eliminated in 1869, domestic output would fall by about 15 percent and the import market share would rise from about 7 percent to nearly 30 percent. These relatively modest effects suggest that a substantial portion of the domestic industry could have survived a significant tariff reduction.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas A. Irwin, 2000. "Could the U.S. Iron Industry Have Survived Free Trade After the Civil War?," NBER Working Papers 7640, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7640
    Note: DAE ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7640.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harley, C. Knick, 1992. "The antebellum American tariff: Food exports and manufacturing," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 375-400, October.
    2. Clinton Shiells & Robert Stern & Alan Deardorff, 1989. "Estimates of the elasticities of substitution between imports and home goods for the United States: Reply," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 125(2), pages 371-374, June.
    3. Bruce A. Blonigen & Wesley W. Wilson, 1999. "Explaining Armington: What Determines Substitutability Between Home and Foreign Goods?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 32(1), pages 1-21, February.
    4. Reinert, Kenneth A. & Roland-Holst, David W., 1992. "Armington elasticities for United States manufacturing sectors," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 631-639, October.
    5. Fogel, Robert W & Engerman, Stanley L, 1969. "A Model for the Explanation of Industrial Expansion during the Nineteenth Century: With an Application to the American Iron Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(3), pages 306-328, May/June.
    6. Head, Keith, 1994. "Infant industry protection in the steel rail industry," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3-4), pages 141-165, November.
    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. International Monetary Fund, 2013. "Botswana: 2013 Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2013/297, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Allen, Robert C., 2014. "American Exceptionalism as a Problem in Global History," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(2), pages 309-350, June.
    3. Patrick Alexander & Ian Keay, 2017. "The Welfare Effects of Protection: A General Equilibrium Analysis of Canada’s National Policy," Staff Working Papers 17-18, Bank of Canada.
    4. Alonso de Gortari, 2018. "Disentangling Global Value Chains," 2018 Meeting Papers 139, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Kalouptsidi, Myrto & Barwick, Panle Jia & Zahur, Nahim Bin, 2019. "China’s Industrial Policy: an Empirical Evaluation," CEPR Discussion Papers 13889, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Brian D. Varian, 2018. "Anglo†American trade costs during the first era of globalization: the contribution of a bilateral tariff series," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(1), pages 190-212, February.
    7. Alexander, Patrick D. & Keay, Ian, 2018. "A general equilibrium analysis of Canada’s national policy," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 1-15.
    8. Steinmueller, W. Edward, 2010. "Economics of Technology Policy," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1181-1218, Elsevier.

    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., 2000. "Could the United States Iron Industry Have Survived Free Trade after the Civil War?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 278-299, July.
    2. Kanda Naknoi, 2008. "Tariffs and the Expansion of the American Pig Iron Industry, 1870-1940," Purdue University Economics Working Papers 1214, Purdue University, Department of Economics.
    3. McDaniel, Christine A. & Balistreri, Edward J., 2002. "A Discussion on Armington Trade Substitution Elasticities," Working Papers 15856, United States International Trade Commission, Office of Economics.
    4. Lopez, Rigoberto A. & Hathie, Ibrahima, 2002. "Testing Protection For Sale In The Food Industries," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19682, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    5. Richard Damania & Per Fredriksson & Thomas Osang, 2004. "Collusion, Collective Action and Protection: Theory and Evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 279-308, February.
    6. Peter Harasztosi & Attila Lindner, 2019. "Who Pays for the Minimum Wage?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2693-2727, August.
    7. Yilmazkuday, Hakan, 2019. "Estimating the trade elasticity over time," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 1-1.
    8. Olekseyuk, Zoryana & Schürenberg-Frosch, Hannah, 2016. "Are Armington elasticities different across countries and sectors? A European study," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 328-342.
    9. Allen, Robert C., 2014. "American Exceptionalism as a Problem in Global History," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(2), pages 309-350, June.
    10. Kim J. Ruhl, 2008. "The International Elasticity Puzzle," Working Papers 08-30, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    11. Aydin, Levent, 2009. "The Impacts of the Trade and Factor Market Liberalization on the Carbon Abatement Policies in the Enlargement of European Union," Conference papers 331842, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    12. Elena Lopez & Emilio Pagoulatos, 2002. "Estimates and Determinants of Armington Elasticities for the U.S. Food Industry," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 247-258, September.
    13. Liu, Lan & Yue, Chengyan, 2013. "Investigating the impacts of time delays on trade," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 108-114.
    14. Desirée Van Welsum, 2004. "In Search of ‘Offshoring’: Evidence from U.S. Imports of Services," Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance 0402, Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics.
    15. Charles Engel & Jian Wang, 2007. "International trade in durable goods: understanding volatility, cyclicality, and elastics," Globalization Institute Working Papers 03, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    16. Wunderlich, A.C. & Kohler, A., 2018. "Using empirical Armington and demand elasticities in computable equilibrium models: An illustration with the CAPRI model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 70-80.
    17. Cassoni, Adriana & Flores, Manuel, 2008. "Methodological shortcomings in estimating Armington elasticities," Conference papers 331813, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    18. Igor Fedotenkov & Lex Meijdam, 2013. "Crisis and Pension System Design in the EU: International Spillover Effects Via Factor Mobility and Trade," De Economist, Springer, vol. 161(2), pages 175-197, June.
    19. Robert C. Feenstra & Philip Luck & Maurice Obstfeld & Katheryn N. Russ, 2018. "In Search of the Armington Elasticity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 135-150, March.
    20. Bajzik, Josef & Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Schwarz, Jiri, 2020. "Estimating the Armington elasticity: The importance of study design and publication bias," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • N71 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-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:nberwo:7640. 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.