Trade and protectionism in interwar Germany

Thesis

Germany’s trade policy underwent many paradigm shifts throughout its modern history, but none were as dramatic as the year 1930 when, at the height of the Great Depression, the German government abandoned a policy of moderate free trade and re-integration in the world economy to set Germany on a path towards autarky. This dissertation takes advantage of newly transcribed, highly disaggregated data on the structure of German interwar trade to investigate questions related to the causes and consequences of this paradigm shift.

I first use socioeconomic data at the district level combined with electoral data to show that Germans’ voting intentions were well-aligned with their trade policy preferences. The correlation between trade exposure and votes for protectionist parties became stronger over time, both within the agricultural sector and between different industries.

I then use data on the universe of German trade to investigate the structure of the interwar trade collapse and find parallels to the 2009 Great Trade Collapse and the British trade crash during the Great Depression. The decline occurred primarily at the intensive margin. Industrial goods were hit harder in the early years than consumer goods, but this correlation is reversed in later years. Trade in non-differentiated goods fell more than trade in differentiated goods. Deflation played a much bigger role in the decline of trade values than in 2009 and the crash was less geographically balanced.

Finally, I construct a computable general equilibrium model to test the impact of trade policy on imports. I find that the shift towards protectionism alone caused a decline in trade as big as the entire 2008/09 trade collapse in Germany. This shift was concentrated in three sectors: fuel, consumer goods, and food. However, trade policy mattered very little for the geographical shift towards the Reichsmark Bloc in the 1930s.

Authors: Wulfers, A

• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Great Depression; trade; Germany; protectionism; 20th century; economic history; interwar period
• Subjects: Germany--History--1918-1933; International trade; Protectionism; Germany--History--1933-1945; International economic relations--History--20th century; Economic history--1918-1945