Trade Policy and Structural Change

We study how tariffs affect industrial structure and welfare in an economy where sectors are complements and preferences are nonhomothetic – two drivers of structural change. Import tariffs on a sector influence sectoral composition by affecting its price relative to other sectors and national income, as well as the sector’s net exports. We qualitatively characterize these mechanisms and use a quantitative dynamic model to show that a counterfactual 20-percentage-point increase in U.S. manufacturing tariffs would have raised the manufacturing value-added share by one percentage point and increased welfare by 0.41 percent. If trading partners retaliated, welfare would have fallen.