Republicans conversion to free trade

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Oct 2 15:04:53 PDT 1999


"Interests, Institutions, and Ideology in Securing Policy Change:

The Republican Conversion to Trade Liberalization after

Smoot-Hawley"

BY: DOUGLAS A. IRWIN

Dartmouth College

Department of Economics

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

RANDALL S. KROSZNER

University of Chicago

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:

http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=170354

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Date: February 1999

Contact: RANDALL S. KROSZNER

Email: Mailto:randy.kroszner at gsb.uchicago.edu

Postal: University of Chicago

Graduate School of Business

1101 East 58th Street

Chicago, IL 60637 USA

Phone: (773)702-8779

Fax: (773)702-0458

Co-Auth: DOUGLAS A. IRWIN

Email: Mailto:douglas.irwin at dartmouth.edu

Postal: Dartmouth College

Department of Economics

Hanover, NH 03755 USA

ABSTRACT:

This paper investigates how changes in both institutional

incentives and economic interests are important for securing

durable changes in economic policy. We study how bipartisan

support developed to sustain the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act

(RTAA) of 1934, which fundamentally transformed U.S. trade

policy. The durability of this change was achieved only when the

Republicans, long-time supporters of high tariffs who originally

vowed to repeal the RTAA, began to support this Democratic

initiative in the 1940s. We find little evidence of an

ideological shift among Republicans, but rather an increased

sensitivity to export interests for which the institutional

structure of the RTAA itself may have been responsible. We

conclude that the combination of greater export opportunities

and the institutional change which strengthened exporters'

lobbying position was required to bring about Republican support

for trade liberalization.

JEL Classification: D72, D78, F13, N72



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