Factor Price Equalization under Imperfect Competition

The paper describes a class of imperfectly competitive world economies for which factor price equalization is inevitable. Specifically, it is shown that factor price equalization must prevail if the trading economies differ at most in scale, if they share a constant-returns no-joint-products technology, and if each oligopolistic industry produces a commodity which, directly or indirectly, is internationally tradable.     

The Problem of Factor Price Equalization

In this paper we propose a new boundary condition to assure factor price equalization. The simple and applicable boundary condition guaranteeing the existence of a unique solution to the equation C ( w ) = p , where p is a given vector of output prices and C a vector of unit-cost functions. The argument is based on mapping degree theory in differential topology.
JEL Classification Number: F10.     

Market Structure and Factor Price Equalization

There is a widespread belief that factor price equalization is "less likely" if some industries are imperfectly competitive and, in particular, that this is so if some industries are under the control of strategy-playing oligopolists. However, it is shown that, if each category of oligopolists is recognized as a primary factor of production, then the dimensionality of the set of endowments compatible with factor price equalization is independent of market structure.
JEL Classification Numbers: D33, D43, F12, L13.     

Does Growth Encourage Factor Price Equalization?

This paper first notes the importance of "one-cone" versus "multi-cone" equilibria in the Heckscher–Ohlin model of international trade, then asks whether economic growth in neoclassical growth models leads toward one or the other. The one-cone equilibrium arises with internationally similar factor endowments. It has a single set (cone) of relative factor endowments, within which countries diversify and have global factor price equalization (FPE) under free trade. The multi-cone equilibrium arises with larger factor endowment differences. It has FPE within cones, but not between them. The two configurations differ in important ways. The paper examines several neoclassical trade-and-growth models, distinguished by their assumptions about saving, asking whether factor endowments converge into a single cone. None of the models suggests convergence, while some strongly imply that countries will end up in different cones. This suggests a preference for the multi-cone version of the model.     

Factor Price Equalization when the World Equilibrium is not Unique

It is shown that, whatever the multiplicity of the integrated world equilibrium, (i) factor prices are equalized if and only if the distribution of primary factors between trading countries can be represented by a point in or on the boundary of a certain convex subset of R ^m , where m is the number of primary factors, and (ii) the likelihood of factor price equalization is independent of the multiplicity of the equilibrium.     

International Factor Price Equalization in a limited-substitutability technology framework

This paper generalizes the Heckscher–Ohlin trade theory summarized in Samuelson's [Samuelson, P.A., 1949, International Factor Price Equalization Once Again, The Economic Journal 59, 181–197.] calculus treatment to the domain of non-differentiable technologies characterized by discrete alternative Leontief–Sraffa techniques. Demonstrated here is how the close qualitative parallelisms between limited-substitutability technologies and neoclassical marginal-productivity models permit the validity of the theorems of international factor price equalization and their well-known extensions even when smooth marginal productivities cannot obtain.     

Conditions for Factor Price Equalization in the Integrated World Economy Model

The lens condition proposed by Deardorff in 1994 has been argued not to be sufficient for factor price equalization in general. This paper shows that the lens condition is necessary and sufficient both in the two‐factor case and in the three‐good case. The results imply that two is the largest number of factors for the lens condition to guarantee factor price equalization when the number of goods and that of countries are arbitrary. A sufficient condition for factor price equalization is also given in the case where the number of goods, that of countries, and that of factors are all arbitrary.     

Factor Price Equalization in a World of Many Trading Countries

Conditions sufficient for factor price equalization within any non‐trivial subset of trading countries are provided. The conditions are that (a) the factor endowment ratios of countries in the subset are all bounded by the factors‐in‐use ratios in an equilibrium of the hypothetical world economy in which factors are perfectly mobile within the subset, and that (b) in dimensions higher than two, either the rank of the factors‐in‐use matrix is 2 or products do not outnumber factors and the factors‐in‐use matrix is of full rank.     

Pushing Economies (and Students) Outside the Factor Price Equalization Zone

Despite overwhelming empirical evidence of the failure of factor price equalization, most teaching of international trade theory (even at the graduate level) assumes that economies are incompletely specialized and that factor price equalization holds. The behavior of trading economies in the absence of factor price equalization is not well understood, and some major textbook treatments err. The authors map regions of specialization and diversification for standard competitive economies and show how outputs, goods, and factor prices change as economies move within and across different regions of diversification and specialization. Two examples of how the analysis can enrich graduate-level trade teaching are given: the substitutability of goods trade and factor movements, and debates over the trade and inequality.     

Micro Convergence and Macro Convergence: Factor Price Equalization and Per Capita Income

Factor price equalization implies the equality of prices of the same productive factors across countries owing to free trade. The present paper examines the relationship between factor price equalization and the equality of per capita (per worker) incomes in the contexts of the static Heckscher–Ohlin trade model and the dynamic two-sector neoclassical growth model. Factor price equalization is shown to be neither necessary nor sufficient for equality of per capita incomes across trading countries.     

Trade,Migration, and Inequality in a World without Factor Price Equalization

The behavior of trading economies in the absence of factor price equalization is not well understood, although empirical evidence against factor price equalization is overwhelming. We map regions of diversification and specialization for competitive world economies with different factor endowment partitions. Goods and factor price responses as economies move within and across different regions of specialization are explored using a series of novel diagrams. The usefulness of endogenizing patterns of specialization is illustrated by considering the impact on inequality of migration flows (such as US–Mexico), the substitutability of trade and migration, and the impact of the entry of a large unskilled labor‐intensive economy (such as China) on factor prices and factor flows.     

The Lens Condition with Two Factors

The authors give a simple, constructive proof that the lens condition implies the factor price equalization condition when there are only two factors. Taking stock of the conditions under which the lens condition is equivalent to the factor price equalization condition, there are the conditions of two factors or two goods or two countries, or the condition that the rank of the factor‐use matrix is equal to the number of goods. It is shown that, in an essential sense, there are no other such conditions.     

Restraining the Genuine Homo Economicus: Why the Economy Cannot Be Divorced from Its Governance

The Homo economicus of traditional economics is far from being completely self-interested, rational, or as individualistic as he is purported to be; he will haggle to death over price but will not take what he wants by force. Implicitly, he is assumed to behave ruthlessly within a well-defined bubble of sainthood. Based on a simple model, I first examine what occurs when this assumption is relaxed and genuine, amoral Homo economici interact. Productivity can be inversely related to compensation; a longer shadow of the future can intensify conflict; and more competition among providers of protection reduces welfare. The patently inefficient outcomes that follow call for restraining self-interest, for finding ways to govern markets. I then review some of the different ways of creating restraints, from the traditional social contract, to the hierarchical domination of kings and lords, to modern forms of governance. Checks and balances, wider representation, the bureaucratic form of organization, and other ingredients of modern governance can partly be thought of as providing restraints to the dark side of self-interest. Though highly imperfect, these restraints are better than the alternative, which typically involves autocratic, amateurish, and corrupt rule. Then, thinking of most problems in terms of a first-best economic model is practically and scientifically misguided.     

竞争条件下的动态顾客识别定价模型

本文利用马尔科夫决策理论，提出了一种动态顾客识别－－定价模型，指出对于不同的顾客采取不同的定价策略，能使企业在竞争激烈的环境中取得主动，从而获得更大的经济效益。     

外包与要素价格:从特定要素模型角度的分析

本文通过建立两种商品多种投入要素的特定要素小国模型来分析外包对要素价格的影响。如果将土地和熟练劳动视为特定要素,本文发现通过生产率效应和要素供给效应的传导机制,外包有利于特定要素所有者,不利于非熟练劳动,扩大了熟练劳动与非熟练劳动的相对工资,该结论与外包中间品的要素密集度、均衡状态时是否为完全专业化外包和资本的国际流动无关。即使非熟练劳动通过培训可以向熟练劳动升级,但并不一定会缓和本国的相对工资差距。     

矿产资源要素价格改革的探索

矿产资源要素价格改革是我国当前价格改革的重要领域,本文分析了我国矿产资源要素价格的构成和现行的计价成本,指出了矿产资源要素领域存在的问题,将我国的矿产资源要素价格改革和建立有偿使用制度结合起来,提出了改革的保障措施,为我国下一步的价格改革提供依据.     

药价昂贵:究竟谁惹的祸

药品价格昂贵、药费负担沉重已成为制约和谐社会构建的严重社会问题,本文从表里两个层面分析了造成药价昂贵的原因和运行机理,指出药价昂贵的表层原因主要是药品收入加成制度滞后、医德医风滑坡、药品生产流通秩序混乱、政府价格管理失控和虚假药品广告泛滥,而深层原因主要体现为国家卫生资源总体匮乏、结构布局失衡、管理部门角色缺失和社会医疗保障体系的残缺不全。     

国有企业对资本和劳动价格扭曲的非对称影响

要素市场化的滞后是我国改革进程中的一个突出问题,要素价格的负向扭曲则是其重要表现.文章从国有企业的视角研究了要素价格扭曲的原因.一方面,金融抑制和所有制歧视使得国有企业以低于市场利率的价格获得了大量资本,加剧了资本价格的负向扭曲;另一方面,由于国有企业提供的社会保障、收入调节功能以及工会的作用会导致国有企业的劳动力价格高于非国有企业,反而有可能改善劳动力价格的负向扭曲.本文测算了171个三位数行业的资本价格扭曲和劳动力价格扭曲指数,通过实证研究发现,国有企业比重越高的行业资本价格扭曲越严重,但是劳动力价格扭曲越小.本研究具有重要的政策含义:虽然国有企业在提高劳动者收入上的作用值得肯定,但降低竞争性行业的国有企业比重、加快金融市场化改革、促进劳动力自由流动、减少政府对国有企业的补贴和保护,将有利于促进资源优化配置,提高社会的总福利水平.