Abstract
This paper examines the effect of tariff increases on regional economies after the passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which raised tariff rates on approximately one-third of all dutiable items. I construct a Bartik-style measure of the Average Tariff Changes (ATC) for each local labor market, measuring how exposed the labor market is to the tariff policy. By employing a continuous difference-indifferences strategy, I find local labor markets with a larger exposure to the tariff policy experienced a significant increase in the labor force participation rate. The effect is concentrated outside the South. Even though the Smooth-Hawley Tariff Act was initially proposed to help the struggling agricultural sector, I do not find evidence that the tariff policy significantly affected rural labor force participation, crop prices, the value of agricultural lands, or the use of agricultural machinery.