Why do rich countries prefer free trade over free migration? The role of the modern welfare state

"According to traditional trade theory (Heckscher-Ohlin), free trade and free migration are equivalent measures of economic integration leading both to an equalization of factor prices. This prediction is in sharp opposition to the observed preference of rich countries for free trade over free migration. We provide an explanation for this inconsistency: the redistribution policies in the countries. Social welfare in countries with a relatively small number of low-skilled native workers is higher with free trade than with free migration due to redistribution of income towards immigrating workers."     

Heckscher-Ohlin Theory or the Modern Trade Theory: How the Overall Trade Characterizes at the Global Level?

This paper has two objectives: to locate the global trade pattern and to compute the export potential of world economies. Considering the maximum number of countries and maintaining a good representative sample of the overall international trade, an empirical examination is conducted by utilizing the trade complementary index and the per-capita income variable in the standard gravity model. The main aim is to determine which of the two theoretical frameworks―either the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, which is based on factor endowments or the Modern Trade theory of Krugman-Helpman and Linder, based on the intra-industry trade―is explaining the overall global trade flows. The estimated results support the factor endowments trade theory. In other words, the observed trade patterns conform to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory of trade over intra-industry Modern trade theories. The inference drawn is based on the significantly positive coefficient of the trade complementarity index and the absolute differenced PCI variable. Furthermore, as far as export potential is concerned, there exists a vast scope for the export potential across economies. These countries can exploit the existing export potential through trade cooperation and integration at the regional and the bilateral level.

     

Factor market distortions,factor intensities and economic welfare: Theory and computation

This paper shows that (1) in the Heckscher-Ohlin type of the two-factor, two-commodity model, a transformation curve is actually very close to a negatively sloped-straight line whether factor market distortions exist or not, (2) factor market distortions will decrease the economic welfare not because of a shrinkage of the transformation curve, but because of a divergence of private from social opportunity costs in production, and (3) contrary to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory of trade pattern, each country will actually tend to specialize completely after trade if factor intensity differentials are not extremely large between the two industries.     

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.     

Trade and Real Wages: a Macroeconomic Model*

We offer a new paradigm to understand the effects of trade on factor rewards. It utilizes the classical‐Keynesian model, and shows that normally a country’s trade deficit hurts labor by lowering the real wage, but benefits the owners of capital. The effects of tariffs on factor rewards and employment are opposite to those of the trade deficit, which falls with a rise in the tariff rate. Countries with trade shortfalls unambiguously benefit from their tariffs, because laborers far outnumber capitalists, who suffer from the declining interest rate. Thus, tariffs lead to a rise in social welfare in trade‐deficit countries.     

Vertical Specialization and International Business Cycle Synchronization*

We explore the impact of vertical specialization—trade in goods across multiple stages of production—on the relationship between trade and business cycle synchronization across countries. We develop an international business cycle model in which the degree of vertical specialization varies with trade barriers. With perfect competition, we show analytically that fluctuations in measured total factor productivity are not linked across countries through trade. In numerical simulations, we find little dependence of business cycle synchronization on trade intensity. An extension of the model to allow for imperfect competition has the potential to resolve these shortcomings.     

Entrepreneurial Selection,Financial Markets,and Patterns of International Trade

This paper introduces entrepreneurial selection and imperfect financial markets to the 2x2x2 model of international trade. Entrepreneurs are heterogeneous in ability and borrow from banks who do not observe their ability. The pattern of international trade depends on (1) factor abundance, (2) endogenously determined productivity, and (3) endogenously determined financial market imperfections. We show that entrepreneurial selection results in a diminished Rybczynski effect and financial market imperfections further reduce the effect; hence differences in capital abundance imply a smaller trade volume than predicted by the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem. The results help to resolve a conflict between the Heckscher-Ohlin model and data. [F11]     

Another Nail in the Coffin? Or Can the Trade Based Explanation of Changing Skill Structures Be Resurrected?

The skill structure of wages and employment has altered markedly in recent years. In some countries (most notably the UK and the US) wage inequality has risen sharply and in most countries relative demand has shifted unfavourably against the less skilled. In this paper we reassess the evidence that rising international competition from developing countries is the crucial factor underpinning these changes. Our results, based on newly constructed internationally comparable industry data, find little support for the predictions of the basic Heckscher-Ohlin (H-O) trade model.
JEL classification: J 31; F 14     

The Transmission of Sustained Growth through the Terms of Trade in an Endogenous Growth Model

This paper develops a two‐country model of endogenous growth and international trade in intermediate goods. In autarky just one of the economies enjoys sustained growth. The trade situation may be characterized by complete specialization of both countries, or by incomplete specialization of the growing economy. In either case, trade transmits perpetual growth to the stagnant economy because of the permanent improvements in its terms of trade. The existence of a non‐reproducible factor in the growing economy is crucial to ensure propagation of growth. Moreover, under incomplete specialization countries converge in per capita income. This result relies on two assumptions. First, there must be a large enough share of world income to pay for the input in which the stagnant economy has comparative advantage. Second, all technologies producing intermediate goods should be equally intensive in the non‐reproducible factor.     

South-South Trade in Manufactures: A Modified Heckscher-Ohlin Model of Bilateral Trade and Some Preliminary Estimates

This paper attempts to interpret the recent growth of south-south trade in manufactures, with a view to highlight the Key factors that propel its growth, and to examine its implications for north-south trade. This is done in the framework of a modified Heckscher-Ohlin model of bilateral trade between three tiers of countries, viz., the developed countries of the OECD, the Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs), and the Less Developed Countries (LDCs). The paper also provides empirical estimates from trade data for the years 1970–1982 in order to illustrate a key proposition of the model. [420]     

Structural transformation and growth of merchandise trade of low-income economies 1980–1992

The Heckscher-Ohlin Vanek theorem, which predicts a direct relationship between exports and greater supply of factors used to produce those exports, performs only 50 percent of the time. However, there is no alternative theory which explains such a relationship. This paper analyzes the growth of merchandise trade of low-income countries, with particular reference to the growth of exports and net exports as these countries move from the predominantly agricultural goods producing era to the manufactured goods producing era. Results suggest, among other things, that industrial structure and governmental policies play an important role in the growth of merchandise trade.     

Poor institutions as a comparative advantage

Classic theories of comparative advantage point to factor productivity and factor abundance as determinants of specialization and trade. Likewise, geography and topography can determine trade patterns. Institutions, however, are increasingly seen as important sources of comparative advantage. A global drug prohibition regime implies that institutional quality matters more than traditional sources in the drug trade. This paper theoretically models trade patterns of illicit goods and confirms the role of institutions empirically with respect to the drug trade. In particular, illicit enterprises gain force in countries where resources are scarce, drug enforcement is uncertain, and institutions are weak in absolute terms and relative to neighboring countries. I propose several policy alternatives that emphasize economic opportunity for the poor and institutional quality that complement drug prohibition.     

Commercial policy and international factor mobility in the presence of monopolistic competition

This paper utilizes a well-known specification of returns to specialization (a variation of the Spence-Dixit-Stiglitz model) to explore the implications of local agglomeration effects for commercial policy and restricted factor mobility. The paper initially considers a small open economy where it is shown that a tariff reduces the degree of specialization and hence the size of the external economies to the producers. An inflow of labor increases the degree of specialization while a capital inflow decreases it. The paper then considers a two-country world where both countries are large and deals with the pattern of trade and factor mobility.     

Location of vertically linked industries: agglomeration versus comparative advantage

This paper analyses the effects of trade liberalisation on the location of manufacturing firms that are vertically linked and differ in factor intensities. I extend the new economic geography literature, by embedding a model with vertical linkages within a Heckscher-Ohlin framework. I show that lower trade costs can lead to an agglomeration of all upstream and downstream firms in one country, even when they differ in factor intensities. These industrial location patterns do not always lead to factor price convergence; and may result in an increase in returns to both factors in the country where the agglomeration locates.     

Human Capital,Technology, and Specialization: A Comparison of Developed and Developing Countries

GDP GDP function framework, and apply it to panel data. We find that factor supplies and openness to trade are important factors influencing the structure of production, but we also uncover interesting differences in results across output sectors and groups of countries. In addition, we find evidence that Hicks-neutral technological differences do not affect specialization. Finally, our results on the effect of openness highlight the sources of conflicts between developed and developing countries in multilateral trade negotiations. Received April 18, 2000; revised version received January 8, 2001     

Trade and Indeterminacy in a Dynamic General Equilibrium Model

This paper introduces sector-specific externalities in the Heckscher-Ohlin two-country dynamic general equilibrium model to show that indeterminacy of the equilibrium path in the world market can occur. Under certain conditions in terms of factor intensities, there are multiple equilibrium paths from the same initial distribution of capital in the world market, and the distribution of capital in the limit differs among equilibrium paths. One equilibrium path converges to a long-run equilibrium in which the international ranking of factor endowment ratios differs from the initial ranking; another equilibrium path maintains the initial ranking and converges to another long-run equilibrium. Since the path realized is indeterminate, so is the long-run trade pattern. Therefore, the Long-Run Heckscher-Ohlin prediction is vulnerable to the introduction of externality. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E13, E32, F11, F43.     

The pattern of specialization and economic growth: The resource curse hypothesis revisited

This paper explores the relation between countries’ pattern of trade specialization and long-term economic growth. It shows that countries specializing in the export of natural resource based products only fail to grow if they do not succeed in diversifying their economies and export structure. This conclusion follows from an empirical investigation that has three innovative features. First, it uses a dynamic panel data analysis. Secondly, it employs disaggregated trade data sets to elaborate different measures of trade specialization that distinguish between unprocessed and manufactured natural resource products and are informative about the countries’ trade diversification experience, their link to world demand trends and involvement in intra-industry trade. The final innovative aspect of the paper relates to our empirical findings: it is only specialization in unprocessed natural resource products that slows down economic growth, as it impedes the emergence of more dynamic patterns of trade specialization.     

Globalization,rigidities and national specialization: a dynamic analysis

The paper extends the ‘dynamic’ economic geography technique to analyze the evolution of national specialization as trade costs decrease. As agglomeration economies arise, due to the decrease of trade costs, countries could benefit from specializing in one sector. Nevertheless, the sector of specialization, as well as the speed of relocation of factors towards this sector, depends crucially on the costs of relocating factors and on comparative advantages. Labor market rigidities and comparative advantages contribute to lock a country in its current specialization pattern slowing relocation of factors. The model is consistent with some stylized facts on specialization and labor market rigidities in OECD countries.     

Preferences,Country Bias,and International Trade

The paper analyzes international trade in a Ricardian world where consumer preferences exhibit country bias. In particular, consumers differentiate between identical physical goods by country of manufacture. In contrast to the classical Ricardian model, the pattern of international specialization in production depends on the preference structure. Possible equilibrium configurations include ones where both countries specialize incompletely and trade in both commodities, as well as situations where the pattern of specialization and trade is the reverse of that in the classical Ricardian world. Both interindustry and intraindustry trade can occur simultaneously, though there are no market imperfections or scale economies.     

Extra-union exports of industrial goods from customs unions among developing countries

Formation of a customs union by developing countries is likely to affect extra-union exports of industrial goods. Two competing hypotheses as to the likely direction of such effects are presented, related to the more conventional concepts of trade creation and trade diversion, and tested. On one hand, increased competition and intra-industry specialization may lead to the emergence of larger, more specialized firms which will be more able to export to the rest of the world. On the other hand, expansion of the protected ‘domestic’ marke may induce firms to sell domestically products that they would otherwise have exported. Evidence from the Central American Common Market (CACM) is consistent with each of the two hypotheses for different goods. In aggregate, CACM extra-union exports of industrial goods did not keep pace with the increase in extra-union imports during 1962–1968.