Abstract
Trade policy has been the rule during this century. Traditional theories, however, fail to provide convincing explanations about why the nature of trade policy has changed over time and about why protectionist pressures have not always been successful. This article suggests that change in the nature and intensity of protectionism depends on the deviation of economic performance from expectations, on the demand for institutional change, and on the size of the existing distortions. This view is then applied in order to shed new light on the role of trade policy before and after World War II.
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Colombatto, E. An Explanation of the Dynamics of Protectionism. Open Economies Review 11, 279–293 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008378908278
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008378908278