German competition and the fashioning of British protectionism in the 1920s

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• Brian Varian (Newcastle)
• Thursday 31 October 2024, 17:15-18:45
• Room 6, Faculty of History.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact gpap3.

In 1925, Britain adopted a policy of targeted protection of manufacturing industries: the safeguarding of industries system, which anticipated the landmark Import Duties Act of 1932. Under this system, an industry could request from the Board of Trade so-called safeguarding duties ‘…reasonably sufficient to countervail the unfair competition…’ from imports. If the Board determined that the industry exhibited a prima facie case that it fulfilled several (vague) criteria, the Board would convene an ad hoc committee to inquire into the economic conditions of the industry and to make a recommendation whether and, if so, what level of duties should be imposed. This paper argues that the Board exhibited an anti-German bias in selecting industries for safeguarding duties. Not only can this bias be inferred from the archival records of the Board of Trade, but it can also be identified statistically, controlling for other determinants of industry selection. For the year 1924, the 1,003 manufactured commodity imports enumerated in Britain’s trade statistics, which are further disaggregated by trade partner, have been matched to the 87 tradable-goods industries enumerated in Britain’s Third Census of Production (1924). Using a probit model and controlling for industry-specific characteristics, such as labour productivity and industry concentration, I nevertheless find a residual anti-German bias in the selection of industries for protection. Already in the 1920s, a bilateralisation of British trade policy was emerging.

This talk is part of the Core Seminar in Economic and Social History series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• AUB_Cambridge Seminars
• Core Seminar in Economic and Social History
• Department of Geography
• Economic and Social History Seminars
• History and Philosophy of Science long list
• Room 6, Faculty of History
• history

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