Measuring Factor Abundance Across Many Factors and Countries

Empirical studies of factor proportion theory face the challenge of measuring factor abundance in a world with many factors of production and countries. This paper introduces a mean weighted measure of factor abundance, and using data for nine factors and 33 countries, presents the resulting factor abundance rankings. These rankings, unlike others in the literature, are quite sensible. Further, there is a positive empirical link between factor abundance and factor content for each factor except agricultural labor.     

Brand name recall: A study of the effects of word types,processing, and involvement levels

This study extends prior research on brand naming by comparing recall for five types of words in various involvement and processing conditions. Experimental findings show that the differences in recall are higher when there is semantic processing than when there is sensory processing. Involvement is not significant and hence provides no advantage for brand name recall. Several significant interactions among word types and information processing are also observed that extend prior findings in marketing and branding. More specifically, the results showed different recall pattern for the word types between semantic and sensory processing which was not observed in academic literature. Finally, the paper discusses implications for the naming of new products.     

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.     

Is Stolper–Samuelson dangerous and FPE a failure?

The Heckscher–Ohlin model has spawned the twin theorems of Stolper–Samuelson and factor-price equalization (FPE), both of which concern the effects of international trade on wages and income distribution. A recent literature, critical of both theorems, claims that they no longer serve as a useful guide for understanding the complex web of trade and wages. This literature also claims that the twin theorems are empirically misleading and irrelevant. The present essay argues that the critics have exaggerated the empirical failure of the twin theorems and, more importantly, they have missed the central message of the theorems; especially, that of Stolper–Samuelson on the optimality of free trade.     

The Convergence Hypothesis: History,Theory, and Evidence

The hypothesis that per capita output converges across economies over time represents one of the oldest controversies in economics. This essay surveys the history and development of the hypothesis, focusing particularly on its vast literature since the mid-1980s. A summary of empirical analyses, econometric issues, and various tests of the convergence hypothesis are also presented. Moreover, the essay analyzes the implications of the hypothesis for economic growth, especially as it relates to underdeveloped economies.     

Coordinating electronic commerce activities in MANIFOLD

Modern electronic commerce environments are heavily web-based and involve issues such as distributed execution, multiuser interactive access or interface with and use of middleware platforms. Thus, their components exhibit the properties of communication, cooperation and coordination as in CSCW, groupware or workflow management systems. In this paper we examine the potential of using coordination technology to model electronic commerce activities and we show the benefits of such an approach. Furthermore, we argue that control-oriented, event-driven coordination models (which enjoy some inherent properties such as security) are more suitable for electronic commerce than data-driven ones which are based on accessing an open shared communication medium in almost unrestricted ways. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

An Estimation of the Impact of Oil Shocks on Crude Oil Exporting Economies and Their Trade Partners

This research evaluates the impact of oil price shocks on oil producing and consuming economies; we used a simultaneous equation framework for different countries with business relations. As expected, we found that oil-producers (here, Iran and Russia) benefit from oil price shocks. However contrary to previous findings, they also benefit from the indirect effect through their trade partners. For oil-consuming economies, the effects are more diverse. In some countries, output falls in response to an oil price shock, while some others seem to be relatively immune. Generally, those countries which trade more with oil producers gain indirect benefits via higher demand from oil-producers. For instance, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, the US, the UK, and China get a negative direct effect and positive indirect effect from oil producing countries. This is exactly the result that we anticipated. India has both negative effects directly and indirectly and seems to suffer more in a positive oil price shock. For Japan, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey the results are reversed. They benefit from an oil shock directly and indirectly.