The Toll of Tariffs: Protectionism, Education and Fertility in Late 19th Century France

Vincent Bignon and Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa ()

Abstract: This paper examines a novel negative impact of trade tariffs and the costs they induce by documenting how protectionism reversed the long-term improvements in education and the fertility transition that were well under way in late 19th-century France. The Méline tariff, a tariff on cereals introduced in 1892, was a major protectionist shock that shifted relative prices in favor of agriculture and away from industry. In a context in which the latter was more intensive in skills than agriculture, the tariff reduced the relative return to education, which in turn affected parents’ decisions about the quantity and quality of children. We use regional differences in the importance of cereal production in the local economy to estimate the impact of the tariff. Our findings indicate that the tariff reduced enrollment in primary education and increased birthrates and fertility. The magnitude of these effects was substantial. In regions with average shares of employment in cereal production, the tariff offset the (downward) trend in birthrates for 13 years; in those with the highest cereal employment shares, there was a delay of up to 22 years.

Keywords: Education; fertility; protectionism; unified growth theory; France (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 N33 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-lab
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://publications.banque-france.fr/sites/defaul ... /documents/wp690.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Toll of Tariffs: Protectionism, Education and Fertility in Late 19th Century France (2021)
Working Paper: The Toll of Tariffs: Protectionism, Education and Fertility in Late 19th Century France (2021)
Working Paper: The Toll of Tariffs: Protectionism, Education and Fertility in Late 19th Century France (2021)
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:bfr:banfra:690

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working papers from Banque de France Banque de France 31 Rue Croix des Petits Champs LABOLOG - 49-1404 75049 PARIS. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael brassart ().