In 1960, South Korea's exports were about 1 percent of GDP, and its ability to import depended almost entirely on U.S. aid. After changing its foreign exchange policies in the mid-1960s, Korea's exports surged to more than 10 percent of GDP by the end of the decade. This paper explores the...

In July 1991, India began to dismantle its long-standing, highly restrictive import control regime and move toward a more open economy. How were policymakers able to dislodge and replace an entrenched system with powerful vested interests behind it? Standard explanations for policy change -...

In 1960, South Korea's exports were about 1 percent of GDP, and its ability to import depended almost entirely on U.S. aid. After changing its foreign exchange policies in the mid-1960s, Korea's exports surged to more than 10 percent of GDP by the end of the decade. This paper explores the...

Do trade reforms that significantly reduce import barriers lead to faster economic growth? In the two decades since Rodríguez and Rodrik’s (2000) critical survey of empirical work on this question, new research has tried to overcome the various methodological problems that have plagued...

This paper presents new estimates of the average tariff on total and dutiable U.S. imports from 1790 to 1820. These previously unavailable series are comparable to the tariff figures available from 1821 in the Historical Statistics of the United States. These early tariffs were much lower, on...

This paper provides a quantitative general equilibrium evaluation of the repeal of Britain’s Corn Laws in 1846, the signature trade policy event of the nineteenth century. In studying the impact of abolishing the import duty on wheat, our framework highlights (a) the large open economy impact...