War and Welfare: Britain, France and the United States 1807-14

This paper assesses the relative welfare costs of the various embargos and blockades of the years 1807-1814 in three countries: Britain, France and the United States. Relative price evidence indicates that these blockades and embargos did restrict trade, and that britain was less severely affected than her rivals. Benchmark welfare estimates for the United States are particularly high, at roughly 5% per annum. While absolute welfare estimates depend on elasticity assumptions, the US unambiguously came out worst in these disputes, and Britain almost surely suffered lower losses than France as well.