Damnifying Growth in the Antebellum South

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Abstract
The South's failure to industrialize more rapidly in the antebellum period did not lead to its immiserization. The South's terms of trade improved over the antebellum period so that its consumption potential expanded more rapidly than did production. Specialization in cotton production promoted a favorable movement of relative prices facing Southern producers. A customs union analysis shows that the South might have industrialized to a greater extent and might have raised its consumption potential further had it been able to impose an independent tariff on imports from all areas, including the rest of the United States.

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