This paper uses a new dataset on the universe of Canadian imports and tariffs between 1924 and 1936, disaggregated into 1697 goods originating in 112 countries, to analyse the impact on Canadian imports of interwar Canadian trade policy, including the 1932 Ottawa trade agreements. Rather than use a dummy variable approach, we compute the impact of individual tariffs which varied substantially across goods, trade partners, and time. We perform a variety of counterfactual exercises to determine the impact of tariffs on trade flows. The overall impact of post-1929 tariff shifts, including the 1932 agreements, was relatively small, reflecting the fact that Canadian trade policy was already highly protectionist: trade agreements can have heterogeneous effects on participants because the shocks involved are different. Compared with a free trade counterfactual, the impact of the overall structure of protection on Canadian imports was large.
Journal article
The Empire project: Trade policy in interwar Canada
Journal of international economics, v 153, 104024
Jan 2025
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- Title
- The Empire project: Trade policy in interwar Canada
- Creators
- Markus Lampe - Vienna University of Economics and BusinessKevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke - Institut d'Etudes Politiques de ParisLorenz Reiter - Vienna University of Economics and BusinessYoto V. Yotov - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Journal of international economics, v 153, 104024
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Number of pages
- 24
- Grant note
- ERC, under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme: FP7/2007-2013 ERC: 249546 Faculty of Social Science, NYU Abu Dhabi
1 O'Rourke gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the ERC, under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013), ERC grant agreement no. 249546; and of the Faculty of Social Science, NYU Abu Dhabi. We are grateful to the following for their suggestions, encouragement, and advice: Bob Allen, Barthelemy Bonadio, Nicolas Coeurdacier, Kris Inwood, Cody Kallen, Ignacio Marra de Artinano, Thierry Mayer, Isabelle Mejean, Mathieu Parenti, Tom Rutherford, Andre Sapir, Mengqi Wang, Pim de Zwart, and seminar participants at NYU Abu Dhabi, Sciences Po, ULB, Northwestern, the University of Wisconsin, the Schumpeter Seminar at DIW Berlin, and the 2023 ERWIT held in Turin. We are particularly grateful to our discussants at ERWIT, Nevine El-Mallakh and Florian Mayneris; and to Kim Ruhl and two anonymous referees, whose comments improved the paper greatly. Iris Stornik provided excellent research assistance. Special thanks goes to Statistics Canada which provided us with pdf's of the Canadian trade statistics for 11 years. The usual disclaimer applies.
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Economics (School of Economics)
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001369733100001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85210135205
- Other Identifier
- 991021963514504721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Economics