What’s the deal with tariffs really? Do they work? Who bears the burden? When did they begin? There has been much debate on this subject recently, with more takes than fish in the ocean, leaving many to wonder what to really believe. If you are struggling to understand tariffs and how they have functioned throughout U.S. history, there are several resources available to help you form an educated opinion.
Law reviews are excellent resources for histories and links to primary sources on a specific topic, many include thorough literature reviews. HeinOnline is a common database for accessing law reviews, but Google Scholar can provide many relevant results as it includes social science databases such as Jstor as well. While tariffs are a legal and political topic, it’s important to remember it crosses disciplines such as economics and public policy so it’s a good idea to broaden your search to include these disciplines. Results on this topic include: Law and Politics in Twentieth Century Tariff History, in UCLA Law Review, or Trade Policy in American Economic History from the Annual Review of Economics. Many law reviews also have online companions on timely topics, such as this piece from Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law, A Brief History of Tariffs in the United States and the Dangers of their Use Today.
The Congressional Research Service is a nonpartisan, shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress, providing comprehensive and reliable legislative research and analysis. Their reports are thorough and nonbiased. CRS reports are available through a variety of sources, such as Congress.gov, Proquest Congressional, Archive-It, and Every CRS Report. Two places to start are U.S. Tariff Policy: Overview and Tariffs and Federal Finances: A Thumbnail History.
Government publications are rich in history, but Non-Governmental Organizations are also reliable sources of research information, provided you evaluate for bias. The National Bureau of Economic Research presents studies with data and research findings, but not policy recommendations or normative statements about policy. In 2019 they published U.S. Trade Policy in Historical Perspective.
What if you want to look at the raw numbers and make conclusions yourself? This Research Guide from the University of Minnesota provides links to several statistics databases from the World Trade Organization and the United States International Trade Commission.
Finally, there’s always…Books!! And the Law Library has plenty of them, as well as our friendly Reference Librarians. Stop by the desk if you have follow-up questions!
Submitted by Manriquez,Elizabeth on March 14, 2025
This article appears in the categories: Law Library
