Interests, Institutions, and Ideology in Securing Policy Change: The Republican Conversion to Trade Liberalization After Smoot‐Hawley

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. tra...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of law & economics 1999-10, Vol.42 (2), p.643-674
Main Authors: Irwin, Douglas A., Kroszner, Randall S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bipartisanship
Change
Changes
Congressional voting
Economic Policy
History
Hypotheses
Ideology
Imports
Institutions
International Trade
Political behavior
Political parties
Republican Party
Senators
Statistical analysis
Studies
Tariffs
Trade agreements
Trade legislation
Trade liberalization
Trade policy
United States
United States Senate
Voting
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary: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 that strengthened exporters' lobbying position was required to bring about Republican support for trade liberalization.
ISSN:0022-2186
1537-5285
DOI:10.1086/467437