Comparative Advantage In International Trade

'Historians of international trade and trade theory, intellectual historians, and students of trade theory will all benefit from Andrea Maneschi's masterful work, which takes the reader through a considerable amount of the primary literature and presents technical models of international trade with great clarity.' - Sandra Peart, The International History Review

This book collects OECD work that builds on recent contributions to the theory and empirics of comparative advantage, putting particular emphasis on the role policy can play in shaping trade.

Traditional trade theory explains trade only by differences between countries, notably differences in their relative endowments of factors of production. It suggests an inverse relationship between the similarity of countries and the volume of trade between them. The Heckscher-Ohlin (HO) factor propor tions theory derives the determinants of comparative advantage in a world of "two-ness" (two goods, two factors, two countries). It predicts that each country will export that good which uses the country's abundant factor rel atively most intensively. The literature on trade offers an impressive number of studies based on the HO theory. The main methodological problems en countered in the literature are: first, the appropriate formulation of the HO theorem in a multi-factor, multi-good and multi-country framework; second, proper tests of the HO theory and proper links of the theory to empirical analysis. The relevance of the HO theory began to be questioned when important facts of modern international trade proved to be inconsistent with its theoretical framework. Leontief (1953) tested the factor proportions theory, using the US data for 1947, and found that the US had more labor-intensive exports than imports, which is opposed to both perceptions and estimations of factor endowments. The Leontief Pamdoxcreated doubt as to whether or not actual trade patterns and factor endowments are related as predicted by theory, and caused many controversial discussions with regard to the proper empirical implementation of the factor proportions theory.

This thesis deals with two theories of international trade: the theory of comparative advantage, which is connected to the name David Ricardo and is dominating current trade theory, and Adam Smith’s theory of absolute advantage. Both theories are compared and their assumptions are scrutinised. The former theory is rejected on theoretical and empirical grounds in favour of the latter. On the basis of the theory of absolute advantage, developments of free international trade are examined, whereby the focus is on trade between industrial and underdeveloped countries. The main conclusions are that trade patterns are determined by absolute production cost advantages and that the gap between developed and poor countries is not reduced but rather increased by free trade.

Alan Deardorff was 65 years old on June 6, 2009. To celebrate this occasion, a Festschrift in his honor was held on October 2OCo3, 2009, in the Rackham Amphitheater at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The Festschrift was entitled OC Comparative Advantage, Economic Growth, and the Gains from Trade and Globalization: A Festschrift in Honor of Alan V Deardorff.OCO It was co-organized by two of Professor Deardorff''s former students, Drusilla Brown of Tufts University and Robert Staiger of Stanford University, together with Robert Stern representing the University of Michigan. The first day of the Festschrift involved a series of panels in which invited participants reflected on Professor Deardorff''s contributions, including his writings on: comparative advantage; trade and growth; the gains from trade and globalization; and computational modeling and trade policy analysis. The panel participants prepared written comments, setting out their evaluation of Professor Deardorff''s contributions combined with their own thoughts on the current state of knowledge and analysis of the particular topic. At the end of the first day, Paul Krugman of Princeton University and The New York Times delivered a Citigroup Foundation Special Lecture entitled OC Reflections on Globalization: Yesteryear and Today.OCO All of these papers and Krugman''s lecture are contained in the volume."

This is the first book to present a clear empirical picture of the international exchange of goods and of the resources that account for the exchanges that occur. It fully articulates the Heckscher-Ohlin theory of international comparative advantage, in which a country's factor endowments (land, labor, capital) play a crucial role in determining trade patterns. The theory is carefully link to the book's analysis. Using tables, graphs, and econometric data summaries, Learner describes the patterns of trade and the patterns of resource supplies of fifty-nine countries and explains these trade patterns in terms of the abundance of eleven resources. His study should create a standard by which other data analyses will be judged in the future. Edward E. Learner is Professor of Economics at the University of California at Los Angeles.