ABSTRACT
Trade policy constitutes one of the most important chapters in any account of the late-nineteenth-century economic development. This was a period when the major players in the world economy gradually shifted to more protectionist policies after thirty years of economic liberalism, between the European revolutions of 1848 and the depression of 1873. Although much of the tariff increases during the period from 1880 to 1913 can be seen partly as a response to the spectacular fall in transportation costs, commercial policy responses to the process of economic integration of the world commodity, capital and labour markets remains to be studied comprehensively. To assess the impact of these policy responses we need comparative measures of the late-nineteenth-century or early-twentieth-century level of protection. Most of the economic history literature on tariff policy, the single most important commercial policy instrument of this period, has been written at the national level, and the focus has usually been on the domestic political processes behind the tariff legislation. Few international comparative studies are available and they have mostly focused on the analysis of commercial policy through changes in tariff law.
