Should-Read: Pseudoerasmus: The Napoleonic blockade & the infant industry argument: "Reka Juhasz’s paper on the Napoleonic blockade... really deserves the accolades it has received...
...the first truly rigourous demonstration that temporary protection for a fledgling industry can ‘work’... in the sense that a country extending the protection can begin to acquire comparative advantage in that sector, and this has long-lasting effects over many decades.... The Juhasz paper overcomes... the nagging feeling that the government might have chosen an industry which would have become competitive anyway without the protection... [because] the blockade was not intended as a commercial policy, and it was more effective in some parts of the French empire than in others. So Juhasz can exploit the geographical variation in blockade efficacy as a proxy for the regional intensity of British competition.... For me the most interesting is the demonstration that agglomeration economies played a key role... this switch in spatial concentration from south to north that makes the paper convincing. Production in the south was inhibited by Britain’s first mover advantage, whereas the north was protected...
