This project aims to enhance our understanding of the role that international trade and U.S. trade policy has played in American economic history. This project focuses specifically on the antebellum period, from roughly 1815 to 1860. (My previous research focused on the late nineteenth and early twentieth century period, from 1870 to 1913.) The short term objective of the research is to produce articles for publication in scholarly economic journals. The long term objective is to produce a comprehensive book-length study of the history of trade and trade policy in the United States. The research on the antebellum period focuses, in particular, on three issues. The first issue is the extent to which the United States possessed market power in terms of its cotton exports. By estimating the elasticity of export demand facing the United States, the research will give us some indication of the possible economic gains from imposing an optimal export tax during this period. The second issue is the role of import tariffs in supporting the early growth and development of the cotton textile industry. Economists have been divided about whether the cotton textile industry depended on tariff protection or not, and this research aims to provide greater insight into the role of import protection during this period. The third issue is the pre-Civil War political conflict between the North and the South over the tariff. This research will focus on Congressional votes on the tariff issue in the antebellum period and determine whether Midwestern economic interests played a critical role in supporting the anti-tariff views of the South and thereby helped push tariffs down from 60 percent in the early 1830s to 25 percent by 1860.
