Falling Tariffs in the United States Were reductions in U.S. tariff rates unilateral, or were they part of a global liberalization of trade?

    Falling Tariffs in the United States

Were reductions in U.S. tariff rates unilateral, or were they part of a global liberalization of trade?

a. Compare how U.S. tariff rates have changed relative to tariff rates in the rest of the world. First graph the U.S. tariff rate against the world average and the rates in several countries. Note the world (weighted) average is dominated by a few very large countries. Do the rates from all countries move together? (Select a few countries from each region of the world to have a diverse sample.) Create your own (unweighted) averages by region: Europe, East Asia, South Asia, Africa and Latin America. Do you see different changes over time for the different regions?

b.Note the dates of the completion of GATT negotiations in your graphs: Kennedy Round in 1967, the Tokyo Round in 1979, and the Uruguay Round in 1994. Did the reductions in tariffs occur at the dates or at different dates for different countries?

Data: Download the file tariff.xls that was generously provided by the World Bank.