Essays analysing historical cases of economic intervention by national governments
Date
1976
Authors
Martina, Alan
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The three essays which make up this thesis deal with
particular historical cases where the market in various national,
or international, markets may have failed to function Pareto-optimally.
While indicating in each of the essays where the relevant market(s)
may have failed, the essential objective of these essays is to critically
assess the government economic interventionist policies which these
market failures called forth.
The first essay attempts to establish whether, or not, the
Japanese government of the Meiji period was constrained from attaining
Pareto-optimal levels of economic intervention by virtue of the fact
that it was prevented by international trade treaties from imposing
tariffs on imports. While it is shown that in a world without any
subsidiary constraints the Japanese government probably still could
have achieved Pareto-optimum levels of intervention, once other apparently
realistic institutional constraints are imposed on the analysis this
result becomes less certain.
The second essay is mainly concerned with determining whether
or not the government assistance given to the United States cotton textile
industry of the ante-bellum period was optimally applied. This government
intervention is mainly assessed from the point of view of the infant
industry argument, although part of the discussion departs from this
perspective for considering the issue at hand. The conclusions reached
vary somewhat from those attained by others who have considered this topic.
In the final essay the issue discussed is the problems the
British government had between 1754 and 1775 in implementing its public
finance policy in the thirteen British North American colonies; a policy
aimed at providing, and paying for, collectively consumed goods. The
central theme considered is what were the political-economic factors which
made this government economic intervention unacceptable to the American
colonists.
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