Not so much:

The role of high tariffs in the emergence of the U.S. as a leading industrial nation in the late 19th century is still hotly debated. Despite its symbolic signifi- cance in the arguments of Free Trade, the quantitative implications of the tariffs on key features of the development are still unknown. In this paper I ask: Could the U.S. have grown as it did without the high tariffs imposed on its manufacturing imports in the late 19th century? To see this clearly, my analysis is quantitative and counterfactual in nature, effectively isolating the effects of the tariffs from other important forces. To do this, I construct a three-region general equilibrium model. The model is calibrated to match the key data during this period. Then, I disentangle the effects of the tariffs under two different assumptions. First, I assume that manufacturing productivity is exogenous to the tariffs. Then I assume that there exists learning-by-doing in U.S. manufacturing so that the tariffs positively affect productivity. Contrary to popular beliefs, I find that the effects of high manufacturing tariffs are quantitatively small. Even with learning-by-doing, tariffs only contributes about 4 percent to the growth of the manufacturing output, and a little more than 1 percentage point to its share in world manufacturing from 1870 to 1913. I then ask what the key driving forces for development are. I find that the large increase in labour force is the single most important factor behind the development of the U.S. economy.