G#246;teborg Papers in Economic History - GUPEA Home.pdf

Göteborg Papers in Economic History ___________________________________________________________________ No. 6. December 2006 ISSN: 1653-1000 The income distributional consequences of agrarian tariffs in Sweden on the eve of World War I Jan Bohlin The income distributional consequences of agrarian tariffs * in Sweden on the eve of World War I Jan Bohlin Jan.Bohlin@econhist.gu.se Abstract: After 1870 Swedish agriculture was transformed in the direction of more animal husbandry. Small farmers in particular specialized in animal produce. Yet, agricultural protectionism primarily served the interest of large landowners specializing in bread-grain production. The paper explores the impact of agrarian tariffs on the factor rewards of landowners, capitalists and workers. Landowners predictably benefited from agrarian tariffs, the more so if they specialized in bread-grain, as did rural workers. With an integrated rural- urban labour market real incomes of urban workers would have come under pressure if agrarian tariffs had been dismantled while capitalists would have been little affected. JEL: F13, C68, D33, N23, N33, N43 Keywords: Economic History, Protectionism, Trade Policy, Income Distribution, Computable General Equilibrium Model ISSN: 1653-1000 online version ISSN: 1653-1019 print version © The Author Göteborg University School of Economics and Commercial Law Department of Economic History P.O. Box 720 SE-405 30 GÖTEBORG www.econhist.gu.se * The research for this paper has been supported by grants from Jan Wallanders an