The Stolper–Samuelson Theorem Faces Congress

The factor–industry detachment corollary of the Stolper–Samuelson theorem predicts that the economic interests of trade policy are independent of industry and depend only on the type of factor ownership. This paper examines whether congressional voting patterns on trade policy are determined by the factor endowment of the constituency or by its industrial composition. The industry model of trade policy determination is not rejected by the empirical tests while the results for the factor model are ambiguous. This provides evidence that the literature examining congressional voting patterns on broad-based trade policy should re-evaluate the maintained assumption that factors do not matter.