The Last Free Traders? Interwar Trade Policy in the Netherlands and Netherlands East Indies

Pim de Zwart, Markus Lampe and Kevin O'Rourke

No 17765, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: There has still been too little detailed work on the protectionism that emerged in the wake of the Great Depression. In this paper we explore the experiences of two countries that have been largely neglected in the literature, the Netherlands and Netherlands East Indies (NEI). How did these traditionally free- trading economies respond to the Depression? We construct a detailed product-level database of tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade based on primary sources. While ad valorem tariff increases in the Netherlands were largely due to deflation, the country protected agriculture and textiles in a number of ways. Once quotas are taken into account, trade restrictiveness indices suggest that protection in the Netherlands and NEI was comparable to protection in the UK and India respectively. The NEI quota system was largely geared to protecting Dutch exporters, and succeeded in doing so, but the reverse was not true.

Keywords: Tariffs; Quotas; Discrimination; Empire; Netherlands; Indonesia; Interwar period (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F54 N74 N75 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-12
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Related works:
Journal Article: The last free traders? Interwar trade policy in the Netherlands and Netherlands East Indies (2024)
Working Paper: The Last Free Traders? Interwar Trade Policy in the Netherlands and Netherlands East Indies (2023)
Working Paper: The Last Free Traders? Interwar Trade Policy in the Netherlands and Netherlands East Indies (2023)
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