We analyse the behaviour of a multi-sector small open economy with involuntary unemployment due to fair wages. The equilibrium level of employment depends in an intuitively appealing way on the sectoral structure of the economy. It is shown that induced changes in employment are a driving force behind many of the comparative static results. Fair wage variants of the Heckscher-Ohlin and the Rica...

Available online 26 November 2010 This paper estimates the Heckscher–Ohlin model with annual US data from 1949 to 2006 for outputs of manufactures and services with inputs of fixed capital assets and the labor force. Difference equation and error correction regressions provide estimated coefficients for the comparative static system. Tariffs on manufactures primarily raise the capital return in...

This article recapitulates some of the trade theories reputed to be twentieth century. Here, Heckscher-Ohlin theory (with its variants), endogenous growth theory, product cycle and new were considered. review thereof, amidst others, highlight assumptions these thus present critique same theories.

It is hard to believe that factor endowments theory could offer an adequate explanation of international trade patterns. While the theory adequately predicts Saudi Arabian oil exports, it hardly seems appropriate for explaining the revolutionary impact of new technologies on world trade. Yet to take this position is to misunderstand the thrust of recent empirical research in international trade...

Rethinking the foundations of Heckscher–Ohlin theory when countries have different technologies, this paper shows how to make the proper adjustments for international productivity differences. The central tool is a factor conversion matrix that computes the local factor content of foreign Rybczynski effects. Factor-specific productivities are a special case of these more general linear relation...

This paper examines the effect of changes in factor endowments on income distribution in a four-factor, three-commodity model, in which two of the factors are region-specific while the other two are inter-regionally and inter-sectorally mobile. We provide an intermediate run model which bridges the gap between the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson and the specific factor models, and which yields result...

This paper develops and evaluates a novel mechanism through which imports of unskilled intermediates (offshoring) increase wages of both skilled and unskilled workers by inducing skill-biased technology adoption and innovation in developed countries. Data for a panel of manufacturing industries in the United States over 1974-2005, strongly support the technology channel with a doubling of offsh...