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The Rise of German Protectionism in The 1870s: A Macroeconomic Perspective

In 1879 Germany imposed tariffs on a wide variety of industrial and agricultural goods. The German tariff marked a turning point in the nineteenth century European tariff history: the decades preceding it were characterized by trade liberalization while the following decades were characterized by return to protectionism in continental Europe. This paper challenges the leading political-economy explanations for the adoption of the tariff that focus on the effects of a decline in European grain prices on Germany's income distribution. Instead it claims that severe macroeconomic imbalances caused by the Franco-Prussian war indemnity played the crucial role in the rise of protectionism in Germany in the 1870s and in the eventual adoption of the "iron and rye" tariff.

Author(s)
Asaf Zussman
Publication Date
January, 2002