Thus, the entire multilateral system of world trade was shattered by events of the early 1930s. Trade was burdened not just with higher tariffs, but a proliferation of import-licensing requirements, quotas and quantitative restrictions, foreign exchange controls, bilateral and preferential trade agreements, bulk trading and barter arrangements, and so on.88 These policies severely impeded world trade, the volume of which fell by 26 percent between 1929 and 1933. Nearly half of this decline was due to higher tariffs and non-tariff barriers, according to Madsen (2001), many of which
...more
