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Conversations with Tyler · March 12, 2025 · 65m
Doug Irwin on the Economics of Tariffs and Trade (Ep. 237)
Doug Irwin — the leading historian of American trade policy — on tariffs, protectionism, and why history shows that trade barriers usually harm the countries that impose them.
Canon
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Irwin: the history of the Smoot-Hawley tariff is a biography of policy failure that every policymaker should study. The pattern — protectionism leading to retaliation leading to economic contraction — has repeated consistently for 200 years.
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Irwin: economic models of trade (comparative advantage, Heckscher-Ohlin) are useful but incomplete. Intellectual sobriety requires acknowledging what the models miss — adjustment costs, distributional effects, and political dynamics.