TY  - JOUR
AU  - Irwin,Douglas A.
TI  - The Smoot-Hawley Tariff: A Quantitative Assessment
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5509
PY  - 1996
Y2  - March 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5509
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5509.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Douglas A. Irwin
Department of Economics
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH  03755
Tel: 603/646-2942
Fax: 603/646-2122
E-Mail: douglas.irwin@dartmouth.edu
AB  - In the two years after the imposition of the Smoot-Hawley tariff in June 1930, the volume of U.S. imports fell over 40 percent.  To what extent can this collapse of trade be attributed to the tariff itself versus other factors such as declining income or foreign retaliation?  Partial and general equilibrium assessments indicate that the Smoot-Hawley tariff itself reduced imports by 4-8 percent (ceteris paribus), although the combination of specific duties and deflation further raised the effective tariff and reduced imports an additional 8-10 percent.  A counter-factual simulation suggests that nearly a quarter of the observed 40 percent decline in imports can be attributed to the rise in the effective tariff, (i.e., Smoot-Hawley plus deflation).
ER  -