Do protective tariffs boost growth?

An empirical investigation

In the cauldron of World War II, American elites, led by Cordell Hull, came to believe that the geopolitical catastrophes of the 1930s and 1940s were due, at least in part, to the great inward turn of the capitalist powers. Specifically, the thesis—as correct now as it was back then—was that the tariff walls erected by the satisfied powers, America and …