Kevin H. O'Rourke’s research while affiliated with Abu Dhabi University and other places

... We can answer this question by taking our model of the Canadian economy in 1929 and imposing on it, first, the tariffs it actually faced in that year, τ gc1929 , and then (counterfactually) the tariffs of every year t between 1930 and 1936, τ gct . As noted earlier, when imposing the tariffs of a given year on the model, we calculate 1000 counterfactual equilibria of the model, each 37 The data for the UK and India are taken from de Bromhead et al. (2019) and Arthi et al. (2020) respectively, while the data for the Dutch East Indies and the Netherlands are taken from de Zwart et al. (2022). Domestic consumption is taken to be equal to GDP, scaled up by the ratio of gross output to value added, minus exports. ...

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The Empire Project: Trade Policy in Interwar Canada

... These policies were more frequent within colonial frameworks, prompting us to examine the role of trade policy in promoting intra-Empire trade, as explored by Arthi et al. (2024). It is important to clarify that pre-WWII asymmetric protection typically involved the metropolis using political power to expand its manufactures in colonial markets (see Tena-Junguito-Restrepo, 2023). ...

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US and Japan rivalry in Philippine interwar import manufactures market. Power politics, trade cost and competitiveness

... The moderately pessimists emphasize that the costs and benefits of free trade and public investments were unbalanced in a way that unintentionally favored the Centre-North over the South. For Milone (1950), the mild tariff system adopted in the aftermath of unification, after decades of protectionism, doomed to disappearance the young and fragile industry of the South (see also James and O'Rourke 2013). Over the years, the point on the negative effects of the sudden turn to free trade on industrial development has been echoed by Bassani (1932), Flore (1970: 174-176), Toniolo (1988) and Felice (2015), who however also stress that the Centre-North was not spared by such effects. ...

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The Effects of Italy’s Unification on Its Dual Development: A Synthetic Control Approach

... We are aware of instances where proper MR controls do not substantially affect results, even in some trade applications (e.g.,Lampe et al. (2023)). However, controlling for structural MRs has proven very important in many other cases (e.g.,Anderson and van Wincoop (2003)). ...

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Reassessing the Effects of Corporate Income Taxes on Mergers and Acquisitions Using Empirical Advances in the Gravity Literature

... As to the causes behind the grain price variations, there is a consensus that grain prices at least on inter-annual time-scales were determined by the quality and size of the harvest on a local to continental scale (Persson, 1999;Barquín, 2005) and by, to a lesser extent, local to regional changes in demand (Rahlf, 1996). 10 Likewise, there seems to be little doubt that disturbances associated with armed conflicts played a major role for grain price levels as well as for the functioning of the grain market (Findlay and O'Rourke, 2003;Albers and Pfister, 2021). ...

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Reassessing grain price variability in early modern Europe (c. 1500–1800)

... Extant literature focuses mainly on the effects of granting fiscal federalism on different outcomes, as well as on why fiscal autonomy has been granted in the first place. Rodden (2006) provides evidence that differences in countries' experiences with subnational fiscal discipline can in part be explained by differences in federal institutions. Sorens (2015) shows that central governments facing secessionist challenges try to hamstring regional tax collection. ...

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Institutional Commitment Problems and Regional Autonomy: The Catalan Case

... The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act adopted by the US Congress in June 1930 increased US import tariffs to a record-high level, and triggering a global trade war because several countries retaliated (seeMitchener et al., 2022). 6 See https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact4_e.htm ...

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The Risk of Protectionism: What Can Be Lost?

... However, the data requirements (high frequency and quality price and trade data) for calculating the relevant elasticities severely hamper much historical work (exceptions are Irwin 2019b; Mitchener, O'Rourke, and Wandschneider 2022). Thus, in much of the work on the welfare effects of historical trade reform, these elasticities are either assumed (Williamson 1990;Irwin and Chepeliev 2021) or calculated indirectly using gravity models (Estevadeordal, Frantz, and Taylor 2003;de Bromhead et al. 2019;Arthi et al. 2020). ...

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The Price and Welfare Consequences of the British Sugar Act of 1846

... Studies by Irwin and co-authors of tariff reforms for sugar, cotton, and manufactures on the other side of the Atlantic represent important revisions of the role of tariffs in nineteenth-century American economic development without acknowledging the (perhaps life or death) importance of reform for producers outside of the United States (Irwin and Temin 2001;Irwin 2007Irwin , 2019b. Recent work on the Smoot-Hawley trade war by Mitchener, O'Rourke, and Wandschneider (2022) is an exception, showing that countries that directly and indirectly engaged in the trade war through retaliation experienced considerable welfare reductions in 1930-1931. An important empirical question regarding the welfare effects of trade liberalization is the degree of tariff incidence, that is, the estimation of the elasticity of import prices and quantities with respect to tariffs. ...

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The Price and Welfare Consequences of the British Sugar Act of 1846

... The introduction of mineral fertilisers coincided with the introduction of national and EU-wide awareness and regulation of environmental problems. The importance of agriculture to the Irish economy has led economic historians of Ireland to highlight the topic in their own research (Bielenberg and Ryan, 2016;Ó Gráda and O'Rourke, 2021). Much of our understanding of Irish agricultural history has come from institutional histories, like those written about Ireland's Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural Advisory Service, which explain the role of the state in developing and maintaining specific agricultural systems (Daly, 2002;Mícheál, 2021). ...

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An integrated mitigation approach to diffuse agricultural water pollution-a scoping review