Effects of Bilateralism and the MFN Clause on International Trade: Evidence for the Cobden-Chevalier Network, 1860-1875

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of Copenhagen
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050709001363
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 1012-1040
• 关键词: market integration; UNITED-STATES; france; 19th-century; britain; gravity; TREATY; MYTH

摘要

This study contributes to a revised picture of nineteenth-century bilateralism. Employing a new disaggregated data set, it argues that bilateral treaties did not implement general free trade, but instead reduced tariffs unevenly through commodity-specific preferences, especially favoring manufactured goods. Gravity model estimates show that specific liberalizations increased exports of corresponding items, but not overall trade. Exporters from countries whose governments used bilateralism strategically to bring down partner tariffs benefitted most. Hence, the network in form and outcome is more properly identified with reciprocal liberalization practiced by the French than with British free-trade ideology.