The antebellum tariff on cotton textiles revisited

44 Pages·2000·1.3 MB·English

by  Irwin, Douglas A., 1962-

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http://www.archive.org/details/antebellumtariffOOirwi
DEWEY
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Economics
Working Paper Series
ON
THE ANTEBELLUM TARIFF
COTTON
TEXTILES REVISITED
Douglas A. Irwin
Peter Temin
Working Paper 00-19
September 2000
Room
E52-251
50 Memorial Drive
MA
Cambridge, 02142
This paper can be downloaded witiiout charge from the
Social Science Research Network Paper Collection at
http://papers.ssm.com/paper.taf?abstract id=242059
MASSACHJSETTS INSTITUTE
,; OFTECHNOLOGY
OCT 3 2000
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LIBRARIES
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Economics
Working Paper Series
ON
THE ANTEBELLUM TARIFF
COTTON
TEXTILES REVISITED
Douglas A. Irwin
Peter Temin
Working Paper 00-19
September 2000
Room
E52-251
50 Memorial Drive
MA
Cambridge, 02142
This paper can be downloaded without charge from the
Social Science Research Network Paper Collection at
http:/7papers.ssm.com/paper.tat7abstract id=242059

The Antebellum Tariffon Cotton Textiles Revisited
Douglas A. Irwin Peter Temin
Department ofEconomics Department ofEconomics
6106 Rockefeller Hall 50 Memorial Drive
Dartmouth College MIT
Hanover, NH 03755 Cambndge, MA 02142
and NBER and NBER
July 20, 2000
Abstract
Recent research has suggested that the antebellum U.S. cotton textile industry would have been
wiped out had it not received tariffprotection. We reaffirm Taussig'sjudgment that the U.S.
cotton textile industry was largely independent of the tariffby the 1830s. American and British
producers specialized in quite different types oftextile products that were poor substitutes for
one another. The Walker tariffof 1846, for example, reduced the duties on cotton textiles from
nearly 70 percent to 25 percent and imports soared as a result, but there was little change in
domestic production. Using data from 1826 to 1860, we estimate the responsiveness ofdomestic
production to fluctuations in import prices and conclude that the industry could have survived
even ifthe tariff had been completely eliminated.
Acknowledgments We thank participants at the DAE meeting ofthe NBER Summer Institute for
:
helpful comments.