Deflation-Induced Increases in Post-Civil War US Tariffs

A consensus exists among economic historians that US tariffs, which increased dramatically during the Civil War, remained high during the remainder of the nineteenth century.' The overall level of formal (legislated) import duties at the end of the nineteenth century was probably higher than the level of formal duties immediately following the Civil War. In fact, the only reduction in formal import duties, an across-the-board i0 per cent decrease in I872, was reversed in I875; and the four major tariff acts during the last two decades of the century, which changed tariffs on certain individual commodities, left the overall level of formal protection for domestic industries probably somewhat higher.2 Despite the acknowledged importance of the tariff to the sectional strife between the industrial north and the agrarian south after the Civil War and the fact that it accorded widely different levels of real protection to domestic industries, Hawke has suggested that the literature about the US tariff has 'a distinctly antiquated appearance'.3 As a remedy, Hawke reassessed the level of post-Civil War tariff protection by estimating effective rates of protection for a number of industries for I879, i889, i899, and I904, using the US Census of Manufactures.4 He concluded that there was a smaller increase in protection than was commonly believed and that formal tariffs (in nominal terms) were only an approximate guide to effective levels of protection.5 Baack and Ray, more recently, have provided a 'long overdue re-examination of the determinants of post-Civil War tariff policy'.6 Baack and Ray's econometric results support their theoretical model in suggesting that the profit motive of special interest groups explains the structure of tariffs and subsequent levels of protection during the post-Civil War period.7 Neither of these two studies provides an estimate of the effects on tariff levels of an important characteristic of the post-Civil War economy, since neither estimates the separate effect of changes in prices on the real level of protection implicit in the level of formal duties. While Hawke's calculations

Deflation · Economics · International economics · Keynesian economics · Monetary economics · Monetary policy · Political science · Spanish Civil War · Economic Theory and Policy · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law

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