“Exploring 200 years of U.S. commodity market integration: A structural time series model approach,” Explorations in Economic History, April 2023, Vol. 88, No. 1.
This paper uses a structural time series model to explore U.S. commodity market convergence, efficiency, and intertemporal smoothing from 1750-1949. I find near-continuous convergence that is largely concentrated in the frontier, broad antebellum efficiency gains, and intertemporal smoothing from the 1880s onward among the most perishable goods. The results reveal new periods of integration across all three metrics and underscore the rapid rate of integration on the frontier.
“Putting the News in New York and New Orleans: The Impact of Information Frictions on Trade,” Review of World Economics, 2024.
This paper estimates the impact of information frictions on trade by exploiting the 1848 telegraphic connection between New Orleans and New York. A benefit of this experiment is that it is not subject to the aftershocks of the American Civil War that were concurrent with the laying of the transatlantic telegraph. I find impacts roughly one-third lower than in previous literature, with each day of delayed news leading to an increase in export volatility of 6.7 percent, an increase in exports of 5.7 percent, a decrease in the volatility of shipping-lagged lagged price differentials by 4.0 percent, and a decrease in deadweight losses of 8.7 percent.
“Hurdles to Hops: How Self-Distribution Laws Affect Craft Brewery Output,” Contemporary Economic Policy Research. 2024. With Darrell Glaser.
We examine the impact of laws that allow breweries to bypass distributors. We construct a model of heterogeneous firms where some states require pairing with distributors who charge fixed and marginal costs in return for additional market share. The model predicts that states without such requirements have higher output and employment due to greater entry and firm-level production. To test this model, we exploit the adoption of self-distribution laws from 2008-2019. We find that states that do not require a distributor have higher brewery output and employment, and that this is primarily driven by a greater entry of breweries.
“Re-Righting the Law: The Impact of VRA Preclearance on Language Minorities” with Aaron M. Gamino (R&R)
In 2013, the Supreme Court weakened the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), leaving the Justice Department unable to oversee election laws in discriminatory jurisdictions. We assess the consequences of this decision by using the 1975 VRA as a natural experiment that induced geographic variation in preclearance coverage. Employing a triple difference design, we find that minority voter turnout remained stable in counties shielded by preclearance while it eroded elsewhere. This erosion in political power resulted in a redistribution of state educational funding away from unshielded counties. Strapped for funding, these counties reduced their educational expenditures. This led to worsening gaps in high school graduation rates, white collar job attainment, and income. Our findings suggest that the 2013 decision will have long-term detrimental effects.
Sugar Highs and Sugar Lows: U.S. Interwar Tariff Policy and Cuba’s Great Depression with Mario Crucini
Work in Progress
The United States imposed high and nominally rigid duties on Cuban sugar in an effort to protect the domestic beet industry. World War I inflation and Great Depression deflation, combined with legislative revisions, resulted in massive variability in the ad-valorem-equivalent rate. Because Cuba was highly dependent on the U.S. market, these tariff variations had large effects on the US-Cuban terms of trade. We study these terms of trade effects on the Cuban macroeconomy as well as on the economies of US states (and counties) highly dependent on beet farming and beet sugar refining. Due to their large variation and concentrated income effects across US and Cuban producers, interwar tariff policies provide a unique lens into the distributive effects of protectionism both internationally and within the US.
“The Many Sources of Variation in Real Tariff Rates: The United States, 1914-1934” with Mario Crucini
Work in Progress
Before WWII, U.S. tariffs consisted of a mix of ad-valorem and specific (nominal) tariffs. The inflation following WWI made the specific tariffs less onerous (in ad-valorem equivalent terms) while the deflation during the Great Depression made specific tariffs more onerous. Meanwhile, ad-valorem tariffs remained the same. This paper uses a newly digitized dataset of 4,000 tariffs from 1914-1934 to examine how these nominal distortions affected intra-industry import allocations across commodities. We find that much of the fall in ad-valorem-equivalent tariffs falling WWI were a consequence of these nominal distortions while they accounted for most of the rise during the Great Depression. The import allocation results are forthcoming, but they promise to (i) shine a light on commodity import behaviors during the interwar years (ii) provide evidence on the impacts of an endogenous protective tariff.
James Harrison 