Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T06:22:22.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A novel institution: the Zollverein and the origins of the customs union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2020

Florian Ploeckl Open the ORCID record for Florian Ploeckl [Opens in a new window]
Florian Ploeckl*
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Zollverein, the outcome of sequential negotiations between Prussia and other sovereign German states in 1834, was the first international customs union, the template for modern ones such as the European Union. This paper applies a bargaining model to analyse the logic behind the creation of this novel institutional form and the choice of sequential rather than multilateral negotiations. The existence of negative coalition externalities, the effects of new coalitions on non-participants, led the agenda setter, Prussia, to choose sequential over multilateral negotiations as that lowered the membership reservation prices of the other states involved. Institutionally, the features of a customs union structure provided a higher payoff for the agenda setter than capturing the welfare gains from the differential tariff setting in a free trade agreement, explaining the emergence of this novel institutional structure on an international scale.

Keywords

Customs unionGermanytrade agreementtrade institutiontrade negotiations
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 305 - 319
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aghion, P., Antras, P. and Helpman, E. (2007), ‘Negotiating Free Trade’, Journal of International Economics, 73(1): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alesina, A. and Spolaore, E. (2003), The Size of Nations, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C. (2011), Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angelow, J. (2003), Der Deutsche Bund, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Arning, H. (1930), Hannovers Stellung zum Zollverein, Hannover: Culemann.Google Scholar
Baldwin, R. (1999), ‘A Domino Theory of Regionalism’. in Bhagwati, Jagdish (eds.), Trading Blocs: Alternative Approaches to Analyzing Preferential Trade Agreements. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, pp. 479–502.Google Scholar
Baldwin, R. (2006), ‘The Euro's Trade Effects’, European Central Bank Working Paper (Nr. 594).Google Scholar
Branchart, A. (1930), Osterreich und die Anfänge des Preußisch-Deutschen Zollvereins, Koblenz: Krabben.Google Scholar
Dincecco, M. (2010), ‘Fragmented Authority from Ancien Regime to Modernity: A Quantitative Analysis’, Journal of Institutional Economics, 6(3): 305–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dumke, R. H. (1976), ‘The political economy of German economic unification: tariffs, trade, and politics of the Zollverein era’. PhD diss. University of Wisconsin, Economics Department.Google Scholar
Dumke, R. H. (1994), German Economic Unification in the 19th Century: The Political Economy of the Zollverein, Munich: Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Universität der Bundeswehr München.Google Scholar
Evenett, S. (2004), ‘The Sequencing of Regional Integration’, Aussenwirtschaft, 59(4): 351–376.Google Scholar
Haferkorn, H. (1933), Bernhard August von Lindenau, die Zollfrage und der mitteldeutsche Handelsverein, Dresden: Risse-Verlag.Google Scholar
Hahn, H.-W. (1982), Wirtschaftliche Integration im 19. Jahrhundert : die hessischen Staaten und der Deutsche Zollverein, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, W. O. (1984), The Zollverein (3rd Edn.), London, England: F. Cass.Google Scholar
Keller, W. and Shiue, C. (2014), ‘Endogenous Formation of Free Trade Agreements: Evidence from the Zollverein's Impact on Market Integration’, Journal of Economic History, 74(4): 1168–1204CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitchen, M. (1978), The Political Economy of Germany 1815–1914, London: Croom Helm.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krauss, S. (1987), Die Politischen Beziehungen Zwischen Bayern und Frankreich, 1814/15–1840, Munich: Beck'sche Verlagsbuchandlung.Google Scholar
Kunz, A. (2000–2015). IEG – Maps, Mainz: Institute für Europäische Geschichte.Google Scholar
Mattli, W. (2000), ‘Sovereignty Bargains in Regional Integration’, International Studies Review, 2(2): 149–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller, H. P. (1984), Das Großherzogtum Baden und die deutsche Zollvereinigung: 1819–1835/36, Frankfurt am Main: Lang.Google Scholar
Murphy, D. T. (1990), ‘Prussian Aims for the Zollverein, 1828–1833’, The Historian, 53(2): 285–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nipperdey, T. (1996), Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck 1800–1866, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohnishi, T. (1973), Zolltarifpolitik Preußens bis zur Gründung des Deutschen Zollvereins: ein Beitrag zur Finanz- und Außenhandelspolitik Preußens, Göttingen: Schwartz.Google Scholar
Ploeckl, F. (2010a) ‘Borders, market access and urban growth; the case of Saxon towns and the Zollverein’. Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB) Working Papers 2010/42.Google Scholar
Ploeckl, F. (2010b), ‘The Zollverein and the Formation of a Customs Union’, University of Oxford Discussion Papers in Economic and Social History, No. 84.Google Scholar
Ploeckl, F. (2013a), ‘The Internal Impact of a Customs Union; Baden and the Zollverein’, Explorations in Economic History, 50(3): 387–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ploeckl, F. (2013b), ‘Local Convergence: Baden 1829–1847’, Scandinavian Economic History Review, 61(2): 122–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ploeckl, F. (2015), ‘The Zollverein and the Sequence of a Customs Union’, Australian Economic History Review, 55(3): 277–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rieder, R. (2006), ‘Playing Dominoes in Europe: An Empirical Analysis of the Domino Theory for the EU, 1962–2004’, HEI Working Paper (11).Google Scholar
Rogowski, R. (1990), Commerce and Coalitions: How Trade Affects Domestic Political Alignments, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, A. J. P. (1946), The Course of Germany History, London: Hamilton.Google Scholar
Treitschke, H. V. (1872), ‘Die Anfänge des Deutschen Zollvereins’, Preußischen Jahrbücher, 30: 553–555Google Scholar
Van Zanden, J. L. and Van Riel, A.. (2004), The Strictures of Inheritance: The Dutch Economy in the Nineteenth Century, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Viner, J. (1950), The Customs Union Issue, New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
von Eisenhart Rothe, W., Ritthaler, A. and Oncken, H. (1934), Vorgeschichte und Begründung des Deutschen Zollvereins, 1815–1834, Berlin: Reimar Hobbing.Google Scholar
Williamson, J. G. (2006), ‘Explaining World Tariffs, 1870–1913: Stolper–Samuelson, Strategic Tariffs, and State Revenues’, in Findlay, R., Henriksson, R.G.H., Lindgren, H., and Lundahl, M. (eds), Eli Heckscher, International Trade and Economic History, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, N. and Ritschl, A. (2011), ‘Endogeneity of Currency Areas and Trade Blocs: Evidence from a Natural Experiment’, Kyklos, 64(2): 291–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar