American Economic Review Vol. 92 No. 1 2002
A Century of Missing Trade?
Abstract
In contemporary data, the measured factor content of trade is far smaller than its predicted magnitude in the pure Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek framework, the so-called 'missing trade' mystery. Authors wonder if this problem has been there from the beginning: that is, authors ask if the Heckscher-Ohlin theory was so much at odds with reality at its time of conception. Authors apply contemporary tests to historical data, focusing on the major trading zone that inspired the factor abundance theory, the Old and New Worlds of the pre-1914 'Greater Atlantic' economy. This places autor's analysis in a very different context than contemporary studies: an era with lower trade barriers, higher transport costs, a more skewed global distribution of the relevant factors (especially land), and comparably large productivity divergence. These conditions might seem more favorable to the theory, but the results are still very poor.
- DOI
- 10.1257/000282802760015801
- Volume
- 92
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 383-393
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex