Working Paper: NBER ID: w7641
Authors: Douglas A. Irwin
Abstract: This paper examines Bertil Ohlin's analysis of trade policy and factor rewards in the context of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century United States. A leading question of the day was whether labor could benefit from protection. Ohlin suspected that labor could benefit from protection and his writings helped spawn the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, which was different from but consistent with Ohlin's approach. This paper seeks to find evidence on whether U.S. tariffs on imported labor-intensive manufactures helped enhance the income of labor at the expense of capital and land. The answer is unclear: vastly different conclusions arise from a calibrated general equilibrium Ohlin-style model and a factor content of trade calculation indirect evidence from lobbying and voting patterns over the tariff are also ambiguous.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: F13; F16; N71
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| U.S. tariffs on imported labor-intensive manufactures (F66) | enhance labor income (J89) |
| tariff interventions (F13) | factor price responses (L11) |
| protection (D18) | labor benefits (J32) |
| tariffs on goods produced with little capital and much manual labor (F16) | labor could gain (J59) |