Summary Elastic dislocation theory has been extended to deal with point tangential displacement dislocations in a spherically symmetric, self-gravitating Earth model with a fluid core and with arbitrary radial variations in density and in the elastic velocities. This theory may be used to compute the changes in the products of inertia of a realistic Earth model caused by the displacement on a fault of arbitrary location and orientation. It is found that, in general, the changes are several times greater than similar computations for a spherical, homogeneous Earth model would seem to suggest. The results are used to examine the hypothesis that earthquakes are responsible for the excitation of the Chandler wobble. An empirical earthquake moment-magnitude relationship is used together with the theory to estimate the total excitation of the Chandler wobble by all observed large earthquakes since 1904. Unfortunately, the uncertainties in the estimation of the moments of past large earthquakes preclude a really definite conclusion, but it appears likely from the results that the cumulative effect of past earthquakes is sufficient to maintain the observed level of excitation of the Chandler wobble. The theoretical effects on the Earth'spolar path of two large recent earthquakes, the 1960 Chilean earthquake and the 1964 Alaskan earthquake, may be computed using fault parameters determined from reliable field observations, and these are compared with the observed polar motion data.