What Do We Really Know about Protection before the Great Depression

Evidence from Italy

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5753152
AutoresGiovanni Federico (0000-0002-2683-683X, European University Institute), Michelangelo Vasta (0000-0002-8683-8095, University of Siena)
Ano2015
Volume75
Fascículo4
Páginas993-1029
Data de publicação2015-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Journal of Economic History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0022-0507 • E-ISSN: 1471-6372
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022050715001552
OpenAlexW2202221294
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas10
Referências citadas25

The impact of protection on economic growth has enjoyed a revival in recent times, with the publication of a number of comparative quantitative papers. They all share a common weakness: they measure protection as the ratio of custom revenues to import value, which biases results if demand for imports is not perfectly inelastic. In this article, we show that the measure of protection matters. We estimate the James Anderson and Peter Neary (2005) Trade Restrictiveness Index for Italy from unification to the Great Depression. We suggest a different interpretation of some key moments of Italian trade policy and we show that the aggregate welfare losses were small in the long run and mostly related to protection on sugar in the 1880s and 1890s. We document that using different measures of protection affects results of the causal relation between trade policy on economic growth in Italy and in the United States. Accordingly, we argue that a systematic re-estimating of protection in the economic history of trade policy is needed

Depression (economics) · Economics · Great Depression · Keynesian economics · Political science · Italy: Economic History and Contemporary Issues · Law · Psychology