EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Classical and neoclassical roots of the theory of optimum tariffs

Thomas M. Humphrey

Economic Review, 1987, vol. 73, issue Jul, 17-28

Abstract: Despite their image as free traders, six leading British classical and neoclassical economists formulated a valid theoretical argument for tariffs. They showed that a suitably small tariff could, under certain conditions, benefit the levying country by improving its terms of trade. They also stressed the insuperable practical difficulties of implementing such optimum tariffs. These difficulties plus the likelihood of foreign retaliation convinced them that free trade was the best policy after all.

Keywords: Tariff; Free trade; Economists; Economic history (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1987
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publicati ... ev_frbrich198707.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedrer:y:1987:i:jul:p:17-28:n:v.73no.4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic Review from Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christian Pascasio ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:fip:fedrer:y:1987:i:jul:p:17-28:n:v.73no.4