Douglas A. Irwin

John Sloan Dickey Third Century Professor in the Social Sciences                       Phone:  (603) 646-2942
Department of Economics                                                                                          Fax: (603) 646-2122
Dartmouth College                                                                                      e-mail:  douglas.irwin@dartmouth.edu
Hanover, NH 03755-3514

Research Interests:  My research focuses primarily on U.S. trade policy, past and present, as well as the Great Depression. 

 

NEW:

·         Nixon and the 1971 import surcharge to achieve an appreciation of foreign currencies (May 2012; forthcoming, World Trade Review).

·         Hayek versus Keynes?  What about Gustav Cassel’s warnings of deflation and depression in the 1920s, anticipating the Great Depression?  (November 2011; forthcoming, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking)

·         We avoided a repeat of 1929-33, but can we avoid a 1937-38 double dip?  Here is something on the policy mistake of 1937 (November 2011; forthcoming, Financial History Review).

·         JUST PUBLISHED:  Trade Policy Disaster: Lessons from the 1930s (MIT Press, 2012).  Click here for the Amazon.com page.  To see the preface of the book, click here.  This book is based on the Ohlin Lectures that I gave at the Stockholm School of Economics in September 2010.

·         Some related thoughts on currency disputes/fixed exchange rates and trade policy for the June 2011 issue of the IMF’s Finance and Development.  

 

 

·         The French Gold Sink and the Great Deflation (Updated:  June 2012 version, forthcoming, Cato Papers on Public Policy).

 

·         Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression – published by Princeton University Press in February 2011.  You can order from Amazon.com by clicking here.  See a preview in my Wall Street Journal op-ed on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Smoot-Hawley tariff.

 

·         Reviews:  Financial Times, Economic Principals, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Fiscal Times, The New Republic

 

 

 

·         New Edited Book:  with Richard Sylla – Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s, based on an NBER conference.  This book has just been published by the University of Chicago Press and is available (in paperback!) at this Amazon link.

 

·         “The Slide to Protectionism in the Great Depression:  Who Succumbed and Why?”  (co-authored with Barry Eichengreen, Journal of Economic History, 2010). 

 Hint:  the gold standard mattered a lot.

·         A recent Wall Street Journal essay (October 9, 2010) on “Goodbye Free Trade? High tariffs and currency wars cost us big in the 1930s.  We can avoid making the same mistakes again.”

·         New York Times op-ed on the Buy America provision:  “If We Buy American, No one Else Will.”  January 31, 2009.

 

·         Other thoughts on trade policy and the financial crisis, at VoxEU, click here.

·         My co-authored book on The Genesis of the GATT was published by Cambridge University Press in June 2008.  A paperback edition is now available from Amazon.com here.

·         The year 2007 marked the 60th anniversary of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; see my WSJ op-ed here.

·         Older Opinion Pieces:  Two Wall Street Journal op-eds, one on outsourcing and one on trade worriers.


The third edition of Free Trade under Fire was published by Princeton University Press in August 2009.  To order from Amazon.com, click here .  Click on Books above to see the table of contents.


Last Update: October 11, 2012