cHAPTER 3 Labor Productivity and Comparative Advantage: The Ricardian Model

The Concept of Comparative Advantage

Labor Productivity and Comparative

Advantage: The Ricardian Model
ountries engage in ihternational trade for two basic.reasons, each of which
contributes to their gains from trade. First, countries trade because they are
1&ru,"'different from each other. Nations, like individuals, can benefit from their
differences by reaching an arrangement in which each does the things it does relatively
well. Second, countries trade to achieve economies of scale in production. That is, if
each country produces only a limited range of goods, it can produce each of these
goods ata largerscale and hence more efficientlythan ifittriedto produce everything.
ln the real world, patterns of international trade reflectthe interaction of both these
motives. As a fi rst step toward understanding the causes and effects of trade, however,
it is usefulto look at simplified models in which only one of these motives is present.
The next three chapters develop tools to help us to understand how differences
between countries give rise to trade between them and why this trade is mutua lly beneJicial. The essential concept in this analysis is that of comparative advantage.
Although comparative advantage is a simple concept, experience shows that it is a
surprisingly hard concept for many people to understand (or accept). Indeed, Paul
Samuelson-the Nobel laureate economist who did much to develoo the models of
international trade discussed in Chapters 4 and 5-has described comparative advantage as the best example he knows of an economic principle that is undeniably true yet
not obvious to intelligent people.
In this chapter we begin with a general introduction to the concept of comparative
advantage, then proceed to develop a specific model of how comparative advantage
determines the pattern of international trade.

gi*'S

Learning Goals
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

.
.
.

trade,
advantage.

Explain howthe Ricardian model,the most basic model of international

works and how it illustrates the principle of comparative
Demonstrate gains front trade and refute common fallacies about
trade.

international

Describetheempiricalevidencethatwagesreflectproductivityandthattrade
patterns reflect relative productivity

24

ir:-...i

On Valentine's Day, 1996, which happened to fall less than a week before the crucial February 20 primary in New Hampshire, Republican presidqntial candidate Patrick Buchanan
stopped at a nursery to buy a dozen roses for his wife. He took the occasion to make a
speech denouncing the growing imports of flowers into the United States, which he claimed
were putting American flower growers out of business. And it is indeed true that a growing
share of the market for winter roses in the United States is being supplied by imports
flown in from South America. But is that a bad thing?
The case of winter roses offers an excellent example of the reasons why international
trade can be beneficial. Consider first how hard it is to supply American sweethearts with
fresh roses in February. The flowers must be grown in heated greenhouses, at great expense
in tems of energy, capital investment, and other scarce resources. Those resources could
have been used to produce other goods. Inevitabiy, there is a trade-off. In order to produce
winter roses, the U.S. economy must produce less of other things, such as computers.
Economists use the term opportunity cost to describe such trade-offs: The opportunity cost
of roses in terms of computers is the number of computers that could have been produced
with the resources used to produce a given number of roses.
Suppose, for example, that the United States currently grows 10 million roses for sale on
Valentine's Day and that the resources used to grow those roses could have produced
100,000 computers instead. Then the opportunity cost of those 10 million roses is 100,000
computers. (Conversely, if the computers were produced instead, the opportunity cost of
ttrose 100,000 computers would be l0 million roses.)
Those 10 million Valentine's Day roses could instead have been grown in South America. It seems extremely likely that the oppoftunity cost of tlose roses in tetms of computers
would be less than it would be in the United States. For one thing, it is a lot easier to grow
February roses in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is summet in February rather than
winter. Furthermore, South Afirerican workers are less efficient than their U.S. counterpads
at making sophisticated goods such as computers, which means that a given amount of
resources used in computer production yields fewer computers in South America than in the
United States. So the trade-off in South America might be something like 10 million winter
roses for only 30,000 computers.
This difference in opportunity costs offers the possibility of a mutually beneficial
rearrangement of world production. Let the United States stbp growing winter roses and
devote the resources this frees up to producing computers; meanwhile, let South America
grow those roses instead, shifting the necessary resources out of its computer industry. The
resulting changes in production would look like Table 3-1.
Look what has happened: The world is producing just as many roses as before, but it is
now producing mre computers. So this rearrangement of production, with the United
States concentrating on computers and South America concentrating on roses, increases the
size of the world's economic pie. Because the world as a whole is producing more, it is possible in principle to raise everyong's standard of living.

.
:

TABTE

3-1

Hypothetical Changes in Production

36

PART

oNE Interntional

The Losses

trHAprER B Labor Productivity and Comparative Advantage; The Ricardian Model

Tlade Theorv

from Nontrade

Our discussion of the gains from trade was considered a "thought experiment" in which we compared
two situations: one in which
countries Jo not trade
at all, another in
which they have
free trade. It's a

In an effort to pressure Britain into ceasing these

practices, President Thomas Jefferson declared a
complete bm on overseas shipping. This embargo
would deprive both the United States and Britain of
the gains from trade, but Jefferson hoped that Britain
would be hurt more and would agree to stop its

hypothetical
case that helps

Irwin presents evidence suggesting that the

embargo was quite effective: Although some smuggling took place, trade between the United States and
the rest of the world was drastically reduced. In
effect, the United States gave up international trade

us to understand the prjnciples of international economics,

but it does not have

much to do with actual

events. After all, countrjes don't suddenly go from no
trade to free trade or vice versa. Or do they?
As economic historian Douglas Irwin* has pointed
out, in the early history of the United States the coun-

try actually did carry out something very close to the

thought experiment of moving from free hade to no
trade. The historical context was as follows: At the
time Britain and France were engaged in a massive
military struggle, the Napoleonic Wars. Both countries endeavored to bring economic pressures to bear:
France tried to keep European countries from trading
with Britain, while Britain imposed a blockade on
France. Ttre young United States was neutral in the
conflict but suffered considerably. In particular, the
British navy often seized U.S. merchant ships and, on
occasion, forcibly recruited their crews into its service.

depredations.

for

while.

The costs were substantial. Although quite a lot of

guesswork is involved, Irwin suggests that real

income in *re United States rnay have fallen by about
8 percent as a result of the embaryo. When you bear
in mind that in the early l9th century only a fraction
of output could be traded-transpod costs were still
too high, for example, to allow large-scale shipments

of commodities like wheat across the Atlanticthat's a pretty substantial sum.

Unfortunately for Jefferson's plan, Britain did

not seem to feel equal pain and showed no inclination to give in to U.S. demands. Fourteen months
after the embargo was imposed, it was repealed.
Britain continued its practices of seizing American
cargoes and sailors; three years later the two countnes went to war.

37

the business section of any Sunday newspaper or weekly news magazine and you will
probably find at least one article that makes foolish statements about intemational trade.
Three misconceptions in particular have proved highly persistent, and our simple model of
comparative advantage can be used to see why they are incorrect.

Productivity and Competitiveness

l: Free trcLde is beneficial only if your country is strong enougll to stand up to foreign
conxpetitiotl,. This argument seems extremely plausible to many people. For example, a
well-known historian recently criticized the case for free trade by asserting that it may fail
to hold in reality: "What if there is nothing you can produce more cheaply or efficiently
than anywhere else, except by constantly cutting labor costs?" he worried.2
The problem with this commentator's view is that he failed to understand the essential
point of Ricaldo's model, that gains from trade depend on comparative rather than absolute
advantage. He is concerned that your country may tum out not to have anything it produces
more efficiently than anyone else-that is, that you may not have an absolute advantage in
anything. Yet why is that such a terrible thing? In our simple numerical example of trade,
Home has lower unit labor requirements and hence higher productivity in both the cheese
and wine sectors. Yet, as we saw both countries gain from trade.
It is always ternpting to suppose that the ability to export a good depends on your
country having an absolute advantage in productivity. But an absolute productivity advantage over other countries in producing a good is neither a necessa.ry nor a sufficient condition for having a comparative advantage in that good. In our one-factor model the reason
absolute productivity advantage in an industry is neither necessary nor sufficient to yield
Myth

competitive advantage is clear: The competitive advantage of an industry depends not

only on its prodactivity reldtive to the foreign industry, but also on the domestic wage rate
relative to the foreign wagd,rate. A country's wage rate, in turn, depends on relative productivity in its other industries, In our numerical example, Foreign is less efficient than
Home in the manufacture of wine, but at even a greater relative productivity disadvantage
in cheese. Because of its overal.l lower productivity, Foreign must pay lower wages than
Home, sufficiently lower that it ends up with lower costs in wine production. Similarly, in
the real world, Portugal has low productivity in producing, say, clothing as compared
with the United States, but because Portugal's productivity disadvantage is even greater in
other industries, it pays low enough wages to have a comparative advantage in clothing all
the same.

*Douglas

lrwin, "The Welfare Cost of Autarky: Evidence from the Jeffersonian Trade Embargo,

1807-1809," National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper no. 8692,Dec.200I.

But isn't a competitive advantage based on low wages somehow unfair? Many people
think so; their beliefs are summarized by our second misconception.

The Pauper Labor Argument

comparative advantage and the nature of the gains from free trade. These misconceptions
appear so frequently in public debate about international economic policy, and even in
statements by those who regard themselves as expe*s, that in the next section we take time
out to discuss some of the most common misunderstandings about comparative advantage
in light of our model.

Misconceptions About Comparative Advantage

There is no shortage of muddled ideas in economics. Politicians, business leaders, and
even economists frequently make statements that do not stand up to careful economic
analysis. For some reason this seems to be especially true in international economics. Open

Myth 2: Foreign contpetition is unJair and hu.rts otlxer countries when it is based on low
wtges.'Ihis argument, sometimes*efered to as the pauper labor argument, is a particular favorite of labor unions seeking protection from foreign competition. People who adhere
to this belief argue that industries should not have to cope with foreign industries that are
less efficient but pay lower wages. This view is widesplead and has acquired considerable
political influence. In 1993 Ross Perot, a self-made billionaire and former presidential
candidate, warned that free trade between the United States and Mexico, with its much
lower wages, would lead to a "giant sucking sound" as U.S. industry moved south. ln the

-Paul Kennedy, "The Thrcat ofModernizatiottl' New Perspectives

Quailerb, (Winter 1995), pp. 3l-33

38

trH.a,PTER

PART ErNE International TradeTheorV

Do Wages Reflect Productivity?

Productivity and Wages

In the numerical example that we

A country's wage rate is roughly

proportional t0 the country's pro-

use

to puncture

common misconceptions about comparative advantage, we assume that the relative wage of the two

countries reflects their relative prcductivityspecifically, that the ratio of Home to Foreign
wages is in a range that gives each country a cost
advantage in one of the two goods. This is a necessary implication of our theoretical model. But many
people are unconvinced by that model. In particular,

rapid increases in productivity in "emerging"

economies iike China have worried some Westem
observers, who argue that these countries will continue to pay low wages even as their productivity
increases-putting high-wage countries at a cost
disadvantage-and dismiss the contrary predictions

of orthodox economists as unrealistic theoretical

speculation. Leaving aside the logic of this position. what is the evidence?
The answer is that in the real world, national
wage rates do, in fact, reflect differences in productivity. The figure below compares estimates of productivity with estimates of wage rates for a selection of countries in 2000. Both measures are
expressed as percentages of U.S. levels- Our estimate of productivity is GDP per worker measured
in U.S. dollars; as we'll see in the second half of
this book, that basis should indicate productivity in
the production of traded goods. Wage rates are
measured by wages in manufacturing, where available; data for China and India are wage rates paid
by none other than McDonald's, an often useful
data source.

If wages were exactly proportional to productivity, all the points in this chart would lie along the
indicated 45-degree line. In reality, the fit isn'r bad.
In particular, low wage rates in China and India
refl ect low productivity.

The low estimate of overall Chinese productivity

may seem surprising, given all the stories one hears
aboutAmericans who find themselves competing with
Chinese exports. The Chinese workers producing
those exports don't seem to have extremely low productivity. But remember what the theory of comparative advantage says: Countries export the goods in
which they have relatively high productivity. So it's
only to be expected that China's overall relative productivity is far below the level in its export industries.
The hgure on the next page tells us that the orthodox economists'view that national wage rates reflect
national productivity is, in fact, verifed by the data at
a point in time. It's also true that in the past, rising
relative productivity has led to rising wages. Consider, for exarnple, the case of South Korea. In 2000,
South Korea's labor productivity was about 35 percent of the U.S. level, and its wage rate was about 38
percent of the U.S. level. But it wasn't always that
way: In the not too distantpast, South Korea was a
low-productivity, low-wage economy. As recently as
I

39

Labor Productivity and Comparative Advantage: The Ricardian Model

Hourly wage, as
percentage of U.S,

't20

.Japan

ductivity.

Germany.
Sorce.' International Labor 0rganization,
World Bank, Bureau of Labor Statistjcs, snd

0rley AshenfElter and Stepan Juraida,

"Cross-country

Comparisons of Waqe
Bates," working paper, Princeton [Jniversity.

China

France

Mexico

120
100
Produclivity, as
trQ
percentage of

sl

,-..
l

975, South Korean wages were only 5 percent those

of the United

States. But when South Korean productivity rose, so did its wage rate.
In short, the evidence strongly supports the view,
based on economic rnodels, that productivity increases are reflected in wage increases.

same year Sir Jarnes Goldsrnith, another self-made billionaire who was an influential
mernber of the European Parliarnent, offered similar if less picturesquely expressed views in
his book The Trap, which becarne a best seller in France.
Again, our simple example reveals the fa'llacy of this argument. In the example, Home is
more productive than Foreign in both industries, and Foreign's lower cost of wine production is entirely due to its much lower wage rate. Foreign's lower wage rate is, however,

irreleyant to the question of whetler Home gains from trade. Whether the lower cost of
wine produced in Foreign is due to high productivity or low wages does not matter. All that
matters to Home is that it is cheaper lr? terms of its own labor for Home to produce cheese
and trade it for wine than to produce wine for itself.

This is fine for Home, but what about Foreign? Isn't there something wrong with basing
one's exports on low wages? Certainly it is not an attractive position to be in, but the idea
that trade is good only ifyou receive high wages is our final fallacy.

Exploitation
Myth 3: Trade exploits a country and mnkes it worse off if its workers receive much lower
wages than workers in other nations.This atgument is often expressed in emotional terms.
For example, one columnist contrasted the $2 million income of the chief executive offrcer
of the clothing chain The Gap with the $0.56 per hour paid to the Central American workers who produce some of its merchandise.3 It can seem hard-hearted to try tojustify the terrifyingly low wages paid to man! of the world's workers.
If one is asking about the desirability of free trade, however, the point is not to ask
whether low-wage workers deserve to be paid more but to ask whether they and their country

3Bob
p.

Herbert, "sweatshop Beneficiuics: How to Get Rich on 56 Cents

AI3.

Hour," /Vry YorkTiws (luly 24,1995),

46

PART

oNE International

: Figure

trHAPTER 3 Labor Productivity and Comparative Advantage: The Ricardian Model

Tiade Theory

47

to 24 percent higher than American productivity.s It is not hard to believe that this dispari_
ty explained much of Japan's ability to export millions of automobiles to the united Stes.
In the case of automobiles, one might argue that the pattern of trade simply reflected
absolute advantage: Japan had the highest productivity and was also the world's largest
exporter. The principle of contparative advantage may be illustrated by the case of
wirld
trade in clothing. By any measure, advanced countries like the unied States have higher
labor productivity in the manufacture of clothing than newly industrializing countries
like
Mexico or china. But because the technology ofclothing manufacture is relatively simple,
the productivity advantage of advanced nations in the clothing industry is less ttran
their
advantage in many other industries. For example,)n 1992 the average u.S. manufacturing
worker was probably about five times as productive as the average Mexican worker; but
ii
the clothing industry the productivity advantage was only about 50 percent. The result
is
that clothing is a major export from low-wage to high-wage natlons.
In sum, while f'ew economists believe that the Ricardian model is a fully adequate description of the causes and consequences of world trade, its two principal impiications-ttrat productivity differences play an important role in international trade and that it is comparative

3-6

Productivity atrd ExPorts

A comparative study showed that U.S.
exports were high relative to British
exports in industries in which the
United States had high relative labor

productivity. Each dot represents a difierent industrv.

Ratio of
U.S./British
productivity

rather than absolute advantage that matters---do seem to be supported bv the evidence.

line, also shown in the figure. Bearing in rnind that the data used for this comparison are, like
all economic data, subject to substantial measurement errors, the frt is remarkably close.
As expected, the evidence in Figure 3-6 conhrms the basic insight that trade depends on
comparith,e, not absolute advantage. At the time to which the data refer, U.S. industry had
mu higher labor productivity than British industry-on average about twice as high. The
commonly held misconception that a country can be competitive only if it can match other
countriesi productivity, which we discussed earlier in this chapter, would have led one to
predict a U.S. export advantage acloss the board. The Ricardian model tells us, however,
ihat having high productivity in an industry compared with foreigners is not enough to
ensure thai a country will export that industry's products; the relative productivity must be
high compared with relative productivity in other sectors. As it happens, U S' productivity
exceeded British in all 26 sectors (indicated by dots) shown in Figure 3-6, by margins
ranging from I 1 to 366 percent. In 12 of the sectors, however, Britain actually had larger
exports than the united States. A glance at the figule shows that, in general, u.S. exports
were larger than U.K. exports only in industries where the U.S. productivity advantage was
somewhat more than two to one.
More recent evidence on the Ricardian model has been less clear-cut. In part, this is because
the growtl of wollcl trade and tl-re resulting specialization of nalional economies means that we
do not get a chance to see what counfties do badly! In the world economy of the 1990s'
countries often do not produce goods for which they are at a compalative disadvantage, so
there is no way to measure their productivity in those sectors. For example, most countries do
not produce airplanes, so there are no data on what their unit labor requirements would be
they dicl. Nonetheless, there are several pieces of evidence suggesting that differences in labor
pr.oductivity conrinue to play an important role in detemrining world trade patterns.

if

Perhaps the most important point is that there continue to be both large differcnces in
labor productivity between countries and considerable variation in those productivity differencis across industries. For example, one study found that the average productivity of
labor in Japanese manufacturing in 1990 was 20 percent lower than labor productivity in the
united States. But in the automobile and auto parts industries Japanese productivity was 16

_
this
l.

The Ricardian Model is a critical concept for this course.

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SUMMARY
1. we examined the Ricardian model, the simplest model that shows how differences
between countries give rise to trade and gains from trade. In this model labor is rhe only
factor of production and countries differ only in the productivity of labor in different
industries.
2. In the Ricardian model, co{fntries will export goods that their labor produces relatively
efficiently and import goods that their labor produces relatively inefficiently. In other
words, a country's production pattern is determined by contparative advantage.
3. That trade benefits a country can be shown in either of two ways. First, we can think of
tl'ade as an indirect method of production. Instead of pr.oducing a good for itself, a country can produce another good and trade it for the desired good. The simple model
shows that whenever a good is imported it must be true that this indirect "production"

;--

-McKinsey Clobaf lnstitute, Mantfactur.in| productivi4,, (Washington,

D.C., I993_)

48

PART

ENE Intrnational

cH,a,PTER

Tlade Theory

a
requires less labor than direct production. Second, we can show that trade enlarges
country's consumption possibilities, implying gains from trade'
goods
4. The distribution of th" gains from trade depends on the rclative prices of the
the
countries produce. To determine these relative prices it is necessary to look at
relative wirld supply and demand for goods. The Ielative price implies a relative wage

rate as well.

5.Thepropositionthattradeisbeneficia]isunqualified.Thatis'thereisnorequirement

be "competitive" or that the tlade be "fair." In particular, we can show that

tt ut a
"orntry
gains from ffade
three commonly held beliefs about tlade ale wrong. First, a country
Second, trade
all
industries.
in
parhef
its
hading
than
productivity
lower
has
even if it
is beneficial even if foreign industries are competitive only because of low wages.
Third, trade is beneficial even if a counffy's exports embody more labor than its imports.

6.Extendingtheone-factor,two.goodmodeltoaworldofmanycommoditiesdoesnot

directalter these conclusions. The only difference is that it becomes necessary to focus

ly on the relative demand for labor to determine relalive wages rather than to work via

the
relative demand for goods. Also, a rnany-commodity model can be used to illustrate
important point that kansportation costs can give rise to a situation in which some
nontaded goods exist.
7. While some of the predictions of the Ricardian model are clearly unrealistic, its basic

prediction-thatcountlieswilltendtoexportgoodsinwhichtheyhaverelativelyhigh
productivity-has been confirmed by

a number of studies'

KEY TERMS
absolute advantage, p. 29
comparative advmtage, P. 26
derived demand, p.42
gains ftom trade, P. 33
general equilibrium analysis, p. 29
nontraded goods, p. 44

opportunity cost, p. 25
partial equilibrium analysis, p. 29

paupei labor argumenl. P. 31

production possibility frontier, p. 26
relative demand curve, P. 30
relative supply curve, P. 30
relative wage, p. 35
Ricardian model, P.26
unit labor requirement, P. 26

PROBLEMS
1. Home has 1,200 units of labor available. It can produce two goods, apples and bananas'
2.
The unit labor requirement in apple production is 3, while in banana production it is
a. Graph Home's production possibility frontier.
b. What is the opportunity cost of apples in terms of bananas?
c. In the absence of trade, what would the price of apples in telms of bananas be? why?
2. Horne is as described in problem 1. There is now also another countfy, Fofeign, with a
labor force of 800. Foreign's unit iabor requirement in apple ploduction is 5, while in
banana production it is l
a. Graph Foreign's production possibility frontier.
b. Construct the world relative supply curve.
3. Now suppose world relative demand takes the following form: Demand for apples/demand
for bananas = price of bananas/price of apples.
a, Graph the relative demand curve along with the relative supply curve'
b. What is the equilibrium relative price of apples?

-J,'j

Labor Productivity and Comparative Advantage: The Ricardian Model

c. Describe the pattern of trade.

d. Show rhat borh Home and Foreign gain from hade.
4' Suppose that instead of 1,200 workers, Home had 2,400. Find the equilibrium relative
price. What can you say about the efficiency of world production and the division of the
gains fron fl'ade between Home and Foreign in this case?
5. Suppose that Home has 2,400 workers, but they are only half as productive in both
industries as we have been assuming. Construct the world relative supply curve and

determine the equilibrium relative price. How do the gains from trade compare with
those in the case described in problem 4?
6. "Chinese workers eam only $.50 an hour; if we allow China to export as much as it
likes, our workers will be forced down to the same level. You can't import a $10 shirt
without importing the $.50 wage that goes with it." Discuss.
7. Japanese labor productivity is roughly the same as that of the United States in the manufacturing sector (higher in some industries, lower in others), while the United States is
still considerably more productive in the service sector. But most services are nontraded. Some analysts have argued that this poses a problem for the United States, because
our comparative advantage lies in things we cannot sell on world markets. What is
wrong with this argument?
8. Anyone who has visited Japan knows it is an incredibly expensive place; although Japanese workers eam about the same as their U.S. counterparts, the purchasing power of their
incomes is about onethird less. Extend your discussion from queslion 7 to explain this
observation. (Hint: Think about wages and the implied prices of nontraded goods.)
9. How does the fact that many goods are nontraded affect the extent of possible gains
from trade?
10. We have focused on the case of trade involving only two countdes. Suppose that there
a(e many countries capable of producing two goods, and that each country has only one
factor of production, labor What could we say about the pattern of production and trade
in this case? (Hint: Try constructing the world relative supply curve.)

FURTHER READING
Donald Davis. "Intraindustry Trade: A Heckscher-Ohlin-Ricardo Approach." Journal of Intemational Economics 39 (November 1995), pp. 201J.?6. A recent revival of the Rica'dian approach to
explain trade between countdes with similar resources.
Rudiger Dornbusch, Stmley Fischer, and Paul Samuelson. "Comprative Advmtage, Trade md Payments in a Ricardian Model with a Continuum of Goods." American Economic Review 67
(December 1977), pp.823-839. More recent theoretical modeling in the Ricardim mode, developing the idea of simplifying the many-good Ricardian model by assuming that the number of
goods is so large as to form a smooth continuum.
Giovanni Dosi, Keith Pavitt, and Luc Soete. The Ecortornics ofTechnical Change and Intemational
Trade. Brtghton: Wheatsheaf, 1988. An empirical exanination that suggests that international
trade in manufactured goods is lmgely driven by di{ferences in national technological competences.

G. D. A. MacDougall. "British and American Exports: A Study Suggested by the Theory of Comparative Costs:' Ecortomic Journal 6l (December 1951), pp. 697--724,62 (September 1952), pp.
487-521 . ln this famous study, MacDougall used comparative data on U.S. and U.K. productivity to test the predictions of the Ricardian nodel.
John Stualt Mill. Prfuciples of Political Economy.I-nndon: Longmans, Green, 1917. Mill's 1848 rreatise extended Ricardo's work into a full-fledged model of intemational trade.
DavidRicardo. ThePrinciplesof Poli.ticalEconomyand.Tmtion. Homewood, IL:Irwin, 1963.The
basic source for the Ricrdian model is Ricardo himself in this book. first published in 181 7.

62

FART

ENE International

Figure 4'1

trHAPTER 4 Resources, Comparative Advantage, and Income Distribution

Ttade Theory

, Figure

Relative price

'

ol cloih, Pc/PF

Trade Leads to a Gonvergence of

Relative Ptices

4-12

The Budget Constraint lof a

Trading Economy

Consumption of food, OF
Output of food, QF

Point 1 representsthe economy's

production. The economy's con-

the absence of trade, Home's equilibrium would be at point l,where

domestic relative supplY 8S intersects
the relative demand curve 0. Similarln

ly, Foreign's equilibrium

sumption must lie along a line

that passes through point 1 and

has a slope equal to minus the
relative price of cloth-

would be at

point 3. Trade leads to a world relative

price that lies bet\ /een the pretrade
prices, e.9., at point 2.

Consumption of
cloth, D.
Output l cloth, Oc

Relative quantity
O^+

A:

differ from the mix produced. while the amounts of each good that a country consumes and
produces may differ, however, a country cannot spend more than it earns:The value of consumption must be equal to the value of production. That is'

Pcx Dc+ PFX

DF: PcXQc+ PFxQF'

(4'5)

Equation (4-5) can be reananged to yield the following:

Dr

- Qr:

o-1

erlPr) x

(Qc

Dc).

(4-6)

is the economy's food imports,lhe amount by which its consumption of food

pfoduction. The right-hand side of the equation is the product of the relative
"*"""4r
price of cloth and the amount by which production of cloth exceeds consumption, that is,
-the
economy's erportJ of cloth. The quation, then, stats that impofts of food equal exports
of cloth tirnes the relative price of cloth. while it does not tell us how much the economy
will import or export, the equation does show that the arnount the economy can afford to
import is limited, or constrained, by the amount it eKports. Equation (4-6) is therefore
known rs a budget conslraint'l
Figure 4-12 illustrates two important features of the budget constraint for a trading
econ;my. First, the slope of the budget consttaint is minus PrlPp, the relative price of
cloth. The reason is that consuming one less unit of cloth saves the economy P6; this is
the
enough to purchase P6lPo extra units of food. Second, the budget consaint is tangent to

Dr - Qr

lt.

production possibility frontier at the point that represents the economy's choice of production given the relative price ofcloth, shown in the figure as point 1. That is, the economy
can always afford to consume what it produces.
We can now use the budget constraints of Home and Foreign to construct a picture of the
trading equilibrium. In Figure 4-13, we show the outputs, budget constraints, and consumption choices of Home and Foreign at equilibrium prices. In Home, the rise in the relative price of cloth leads to a rise in the consumption of food relative to cloth and a fall in
the relative output of food. Home produces 0l of food but consumes Df; it therefore
becomes a cloth expofter and a food importer. In Foreign, the posttrade fall in the relative
price of cloth leads to a rise in the consumption of cloth relative to food and a fall in the relative output of cloth; Foreign therefore becomes a cloth importer and a food exporter. In
equilibrium Home's expofts of cloth must exactly equal Foreign's imports and Home's
irnports of food exactly equal Foreign's exports. The qualities are shown by the equality of
the two colored triangles in Figure 4-13.
To sum up what we have learned about the paftern of trade: Home has a higher ratio of
labor to land than Foreign; that is, Home is abundant in labor and Foreign is abundant in
land. Cloth production uses a higher ratio of labor to land in its production than food; that
is, cloth is labor-intensive and food is land-intensive. Home, the labor-abundant country,
exports cloth, the labor-intensive good; Foreign, the land-abundzult country, expor.ts food,
the land-intensive good. The general statement of tle result is: Countries tend to export
goods whose production is i.ntenslve in factors with tvhich thqt are abundantly endowed.

Trade and the Distribution of Income

imports equal
constraint that tbe value of consumption equals that of production (or, equivalently, that
them. For now we
exports in value) may not hold when countries can borow frcm other countries or lend to
(eqation (4-6)) therefore holds.
assume that these possibilities re not available and that the budget constraint
consumption ovel
lnternational bonowing md lending ile examined in Chapter 7, which shows that an economy's
rize is still constrained by the nrcessity ofpaying its debts to foreign lende$'
SThe

-Et'-?ffT*.f-1'_-=":

Trade produces a convergence ol relative prices. Changes in relative prices, in turn, have
strong effects on the rlative eamings of labor and land. A rise in the price of cloth raises the
purchasing power of labor in terms of both goods while lowering the purchasing power of
land in terms of both goods. A rise in the price of food has the reverse effect. Thus international trade has a powerful effect on income distribution. In Home, where the relative price

PART

64

l-

trNE International

cHAPTER 4 Resources, Comparative Advantage,

and Income Distribution

Ttade Theory

Quantity of
food

Quantity ol
food

nH nH

OL D;

Quantity of
ctoln

Foreign's
cloth
imports
(b) Foreign

Home's
cloth
exports
(a) Home

Figure 4-13
Trading Equilibrium

Home,simportsofloodareexact|yequaltoForeigntexports,andForeign'simportso{clothareexact|yequa|toHome's
exp0ns.

derive
from labor gain from trade but those who
of cloth rises, people who get their income
the relative price of clotl falls'
where
In
Foreign'
off
worse
rnade
are
their income from land
made better off'
worse off and landowners are
the opposite happens: Laborers are made

Theresourceofwhichurounoyhasarelativelylargesupply(laborinHome'landin

and t}re resource of which it has a relatively

Foreign) is the abundant lctot in ihut "oontr.y'
the scarce.factor' The general conclusion
is
small supply (land in Home, labor in Foreignj
trade is: Owners of a country's abunioational
of
distribution
income
tlre
about
"ff"a'
sca,rc: factors lose:
a
country's
oJ
ou)ners
but
--,^-^r
t"nfrom trade,
"-suggests that compared
." ,hortty that the trade pattern of the United States
#"
labor
skilled
highly
with
endowed
abundantly
with the rest of th" totta th" Unittd Siates is
that international trade
t"un'
scarce'
and that low-skilled fuUo.
but
"o*pondingly
United States worse off-not just temporarily'
tencls to make low-skilled workers in the
on low-skilled workers poses a perslstent
trade
of
effect
negative
The
basis.
on a sustained
labor intensively' sch as apparel and

.'

Zt"tj)ti.lt
rlff

ihi'

i'

t,i";l;-bl"t.

Industries

ut ut" low-skilled

shoes, consistently demand protection

f'om foreign competition' and their demands attract

considerablesympathybecauselow-skilledworkersarerelativelybadlyofftobeginwith,

Factor-Price Equalization

in Home than in Foreign' and land would earn

In the absence of trade' labor would earn less
have a lower relative price of cloth than
would
Home
tuto.*ununt
more. without truo.,
prices ofgoods implies an even larger
in
relative
Foreign, and the difference
land-abundant

difference in the relative prices of lactors '

ir,, - at

rii

65

. WhenHomeandForeignT.g.,ft:relativepricesofgoodsconverge.Thisconvergence,
in turn, causes convergence of the relative prices of lani
and rabor. ihus th"." ; ;l-;
tendency toward equalization of factor prices.
How far does this tendency go?
The surprising answer is that in the moder the tendency
goes aa the way. Intemational
trade leads to comprete equalization of factor prices.
Although Home has u hgr,", ,u,io or
labor to land than Foreign, once they trade with each
other the wage rate and the rent on

land are the same in both countries. To see this, refer

back to Figure 4-6, which shows that
given the prices of croth and food we can determine
the wage rate and the rental rate with_
out reference to the supplies of land and labor. If
Home ani Foreign face the same rerative
prices ofcloth and food, they will also have the
same factor prices.
To
. understand how this equalization occurs, we have to rcalize that when Home and Foreign trade with each other more is happening than
a simpre exchange of goods. In an indirect way the two countdes are in effect trading factors
of producti.n. H-ome lets Foreign
have the use of some of its abundant labor, not by
seiling the rabor directly but by tradiig
goods produced with a high ratio of labor to rand
ior go produced with a low laborland
ratro. The goods that Home sells require more labor
to produce than the goods it receives in
return; rhat is, more labor is embodied in Home's exprts
than in its imports. Thus Home
exports its labor, embodied in its labor-intensive exports.
conversery,'Foreign's exports
ernbody more land than its imports, thus Foreign is
indirectty exporting its rand. when
viewed this way, it is not surprising that h.ade r;ads
to equarization of the two countries,
ractor Dflces.
Although this view of trade i*simpre ancl appearing, there
is a major probrem: In the real
world factor prices are not equarized. Ror eiample,lhere
is an extremely wide range of
wage rates across countries (Tabre 4-l). while some
ofthese differences may reflecldif_
t-erences in the quality of laboq they are too wide
to be exprained away on this basis alo'e.
. To understand why the model <.loesn't give us an accurate prediction, we need to look at
its assumptions. Three assumptions cnrciar to the prediction
of factor-price equalization are
in reality certainly untrue. These are the assumptions that (r)
both countries produce both
goods; (2) technologies are the same; and (3) tride
actualty'equatizes the prices ofgoods in
the two countries.

66

PART

BNE International

cHAFTeR 4

Tlade Theory

prices of cloth and food in Figure 4To derive the wage and rental rates from the
This need not' however' be the
goods'
both
produced
6, we assumed that the country
produce only cloth' while
might
land
to
case. A country with a very hiih ratio of labor
produce only food This implies
might
labor
to
tand
of
rat
higtr
a
very
with
a counfy

1.

thatfactor-priceequalizationocculsonlyifthecountriesinvolvedaresuff,rcientlysim-

ilarintheirrelativetctorendowments.(Amorethoroughdiscussionofthispointis
be equalized between
to this chapter') Thus' factor prices need not
glt"" it "
to unskilled labor'
"pp"ndix
of
skilled
or
to
labor
capital
of
tatios
Soun*i", with radically diffe"nt
countries have
fn" propositionthat trade equalizes iactor prices will not hold if

i.

a country with superior technology

different technologies of production' For example'
rate than a country with an inferental
a
highei
md
rate
might have both a higher wage
work suggests that it is essenrioitechnology. As describeJ later in this chapter' recent
the factor-proportlons
reconcile
to
in
technology
differences
such
tial to allow-tor
trade'
model with actual data on world
depends on t:T3. Finally, the proposition of complete factor-priceequalization goods are not fully
world' prices of
leal
the
goos'
In
of
p'it"'
"
of
pr"t"
"onu".g.o""
is due to both natural barriers
qoalirea Uiint"rnationa-l trade Tiis lack of convergence
quotas' and
and barriers to trade such as tariffs' impofi
(such as transportation

other restrictions.

"ost')

cloth and food production' andland receives

Workers earn the same wage
factor of production may temrent in both industries ln the real world' the same
it takes time for factors
because
industries'
different
in
amounts
forarily earn quite different
to move resources
is
time
there
after
run'
long
industries. Only in the

ii

,t..,

io roou" betw.en

between industries,

will earnings be equalized again'

industry, at
reflr. to factors of production that are "stuck" in an
are specitic in the short-run' the
very impoftant in practice' Suppose
distinction between the short run ancl the long run is
In our long-run model this is good
cloth.
pricJ
of
relative
the
in
a
fall
that trade will lead to
owners of land that is cunently
run
short
the
for landowners and bad lbr workersBut in

International

"cono-rst,
t"u.fi".por-ity, as specifrc factors' Because many factors

usedinclothproduconmaysuffer,whileworkerswhoarecurrentlyproducingfoodmay
in
gains and losses often seem to determine political positions

g"t".

etJ*"ft

with college degrees eamed anJrourly_wage onry 21 percent

higher than that ofmen with
only a high school education. By 2002 the coltege piemium
had widened to ++ p"r""ni.
why has wage inequality increased? Many-os"rv"rs
attribute trre ctung to *r"
growth of world trade and in particular to the growing
expofts of manufu.torO eo;,
from newly induskializing economies (NIEs), Juch
ur"Souh K;;i;;.;f;.
1970s trade between advanced industrial nations
and less_;";;;;;;;;i;r;;
referred to as'.North-South,' trade because most
advanced nati;;;;;:
perate zone of the Northern Hemisphere-consisted
overwhelmingrv
,,
Northern manufactures for Southern raw materials
"r
"*r;;g"'"r
and agn
and coffee. From 1970 onward, however, former
-"r;:t1f;"Si."1';r"r"i::;l
j: sell manufactured goods to high_wagecountri;fk";"
P"gun
learned in Chapter 2, developing countries have
dramatically changed ,'r"il;;;f;;;
they export, moving away from their traditional
reliance on agriculturar and mineral

*.'

;;il;r;";:

products to a focus on manufacfured goods.

white
marker for erports from rhe high-wage nations,

MEr atso p.oiiaeJa

rhe expods ofthe n.*ry

il;;ffi;

economies obviousry differed greatly in factor inteasity

from their
whelrningly, NIE exports to advanced nations consisted
of ilc
arively uisophisti"ui.a proiu.r, whose producrio" ,,

;naurtiuiirin!

impo.t.""ri

,nr.n.,"3ilt;;ffilfli;:tifi:

advanced-country exports to the NIEs consisted

of capir'_
as chemicals and aircraft.
".
To many observers the conclrrsion seemed sfaightforward:
What was happening was
a move toward factor-price equalization. Trade
between advanced cou"t i", tt ut *" iurndant in capital and skill and MEs with their abundant
supply of unskilled rabor was raising the wages of highly skilled workers and lowering
the skill- and capitar-abundant countries, jurt
ur

the;6;f l"*;ktil'il;#;
t*ro.-piop*io; il;;;;"1"
This is an argument with much moie than pu."fy uJua;i.;;;:il;"
regards the growing inequality of income in
uauun""inution,
, ;;i;;;;il.,;;
many people do, and if one arso believes that growing
", i, ,h" #;;;;
worrd trade
that problem, it becomes difficult to maintain-the
trationai ,rpd;;;;;;
free

-",
;g"t ;;;;#;,
th;t;;l;
'ffi#

"

while some economists believe that growing trade with low-wage

countries

T31
empirical

has been
cause of growing inequality of income in the United
Stares, however. mosr
workers believed at rhe time of wriring thar international

a contributing facror to that growth, and that

ticism rcsts on three main observations.

S|_crdl

;;

trade. (As we point out below, in principle tux.,

and g
offset the effect ort ua" ooin"o." distriburion,
but o""
*:::T,":1,?fi",ffi;il
happen in practice.) Some influential commentarors
h^""
will have ro res'.ict rhei. ..ade with low-wage countries
tf
middle-cIass sociedes.

short-tun

debates over trade PolicY.

ffiCasc

Distribution

rf.iif_.i""ri;;;.;

Trade and Income Distribution in the Shoil Bun

to realize that we've been using a
In looking at the politics of trade policy, it's irnportant
don't depend on which-industry
production
of
of
iu"toit
earnings
model in which the

".fioy,
tne sae

Resources, Comparative Advantage, and Income

.,Fi1t'

tf

;r;" i."r;";;;i ;;;

th-e

-uin .uur", ri*-"rr"*t;;;l;'rk"*

facror-proporlions moder says thar internationai

trade aflects the income aisil interrational trade was the rnain

urDulron vra a crrange in relative goods prices.

So

North-South Trade and lncome Inequality

ThedistributionofwagesintheUnitedStateshasbecomeconsiderab|ymoreunequal

iF,if,'ffi fi il#;T;iT,'":".llffin:fi ti;tl;:;

il:fiT,;i;T,'"fsh"r*::uitl"3:**r:l"x:;lJ:.HJil:iffi #,T::

6Antong

the impoilant entdes in the discussion of the impact

of trade on income distributioD have been Robef{
Lauence and Matthew Slaughrer,.,Trade md U.S. Wagei:
Ciant Suckingsouno or Snall Hicctp?,,Btookings
Activiry* 1: t.gs3; Jerftty Sachs and"Howard sr,*r,':i?uo.
r"bs in U.s. Manufacrurins,,,
activirl, l: r 994; and Adrian wo od, North_south"no
rm.te, Emptolment, and rncome
7::.::::!.:.r:!:::,i:,^:cono,tnic
InequaIth'uxtor(l:
cldendon'I994 Forasurveyoftbisdebateandrelatedissues.seeRobertLawrence,.tirgle
W)id, Dh'kletl Nations: Globulitnion cnttl OECD Lrhor Markerr., paris:
OECD, t995.

Y::::1:1:.:","

67

6a

PART

c]NE Intemational TladeTheory

trHApTER 4 Resources, Comparative Advantage,

and Income Distdbution

to O"

driving force behind growing income inequality, there ought

"T*:,ll*:"::l:
ol unsKlleo-laDorrise iithe price of skillintensive products compared with^those
find clear'evidence
to
failed
ini"n.iu" gooOr. Studies of internatid price Oata'however'
prices.
relative
in
of such a change
Second, the model predicts that relative factor prices

'l":ld

t:t"-:lC-":ii

::9:i":1

in the-skill-abundant
skilied workers are rising and those of unskilled workers-falling
labor-abuld:o'
the
in
happening
be
should
reverse
country the
"o:ntt{l :t-Ytt :l
themselves to trade have
incom distribution in developing countries that have opened
in parcular' careMexico'
In
shown that in at least in some cases the reverse was true'
late l9S!sinthe
trade
country's
ofthe
the
tansformation
that
shown
ful studies have
of manufactured goods:
Mexico opened itself to imports and became a major exporter
overall wage
was accompanied by rising *t r"t sr<i]le{19*er;:T9 crowinc
States'
United
tbe
in
paralleling
developments
inecualitv. ioselv
gtown raprdly' lt.sttll
itti.O, utttrougi Lade between advanced countries and NIEs has
the.1jvLc-ed naonsl
constitutes only a small percentage of total spendine in
1s,:
skilled labor expo"T.:.fi
result, estimates of the :'facto: content" of this trade-the
an:
exlorts'
effect, by advanced counries embodied in skill-intnsive
"the-:,":i::
olll
t-aUor,ln eff"ct, imported in labor-intensive expgrts-are stilf
":T1l
llows cannot
rade
these
that
suggests
This
labor'
unskilled
and
total supplies of skilled

69

I Figure 4-14
I

Trade Expandsthe Economy.s

ConsumptionPossibilities
Before trade, economy's production and consumption were at point
2 on its production possibilities

frontier (P4. After trade, the economy can consume at any point on
its budget constraint. The portion

ofthe budget constraint

in

the col-

ored region consists of feasible

posttrade consumption choices

with consumption of both goods

higherthan atthe pretrade point2.

o:

fr::1i::1:

distribution'

have had a very large impact on income

.1-:rr^r ...^-r.^-
skilled and unslolt-ed wole:
What, then, is responsible for the growing gap between
but.technoF
trade
not
is
villain
the
is
thd
majority
ofthe
view
in the United States? The

ogy;whichhasdevaluedless.skilled*o.k.Th.Viewthattradeisirrfactthemainexplantion still has a number of adherents, however'

T he Political Economy of Trade: A Preliminary View

InChapter3weofferedasunnyviewofinternationalade:IntheRicardianmodel'everyonegains.Butinthefactor-proportionsrnodel,therearetypicallylosersaswe|laswinners
that must compete with
from tracle. In the short run, factors that are specific to industries
importslosefromtrade.Inthelongrun,acountry'sscarcefactorslosefromtrade.Sincewe
cannolongersimplyassertthattradebenefitseveryone'weneedtotakeadeeperlookat
hade, asking thee questions:

.
.
.

people lose?
In what sense can we even talk about gains from trade when some
the government do?
Given the fact that some people lose from trade, what should
What are governments likely to do in practice?

The Gains from Trade, Bevisited

try to answer this quesDo the gains from trade outweigh the losses? One way you might
tionwo-uldbetosumupthegainsofthewinnersandthelossesofthelosersandcompare
them.Theproblemwittrthisprocedureisthatwearecomparingwelfare'aninherentlysubout of
jective thing. Suppose that workers are dull people wbo get hardly any satisfaction
get immense pleasure out
who
bons
vivanls
are
landowners
while
in"."ur"d
"n.option,
ofit.ThenonemightweltimaginethattradereducesthetotalamoudtofpleasureinHome.
the province of what
But the reverse could equally " t o". Mo." ro the point, it is outside
enjoyment indimuch
how
out
try
to
figure
to
analysis
economic
as
of
we normally think
viduals get out of their lives.

A better way to assess the overall gains from trade is to

ask a different question: could
those who gain from trade compensate those who
rose, and still be better off themselves? If
so,lhen trade is potentially a source of gain to
"u"ryon".
To illustrate that trade is a source of potentiar
jain for everyone, we proceed
in three

steps:

1' First, we notice that in the absence of trade the economy would
have to produce
what it consumed, and vice versa. Thus the c onsumption
of the economy in tn" tr"n""
of hade would have to be point on the productioi possibility

u,yJi:1l prerrade consumprion point is shown

fronti"r."In

as point 2.

Fig;;_l;,

2' Next, we notice that it is possible for a trading economy to consume

more of olr
goods than it wourd have in the absence of trade.
ihe budget constraint in Figure 4-r4
represents ail the possible combinations of food
and croth that the country culd con_
sume given the world rerative price of cloth. part
of that budget constraint-tt p* in
the_colored region-represents situations in
"
which the economy consumes more
of
both cloth and fbod than it could in the absence of
trade. Notice that this resurt does not
depend on the assumption that pretrade production
and consumption was at point 2;
unless pretrade production was at point l, so
that trade has no ellbct on production at
all, there is arways a part of the budget constraint that
allows consumption of more of
both goods.
3. Finally, observe that if the econorny as a whole consumes
rnore of both goods,
then it is possible in principle to give eacir individuar
more ofboth goods. This wourd
make everyone bettef off' Thisshows, then, that
it is possible to ensure that everyone is
better off as a resurt of trade. of course, everyone
-igtrt u" st'r better off if they had
less of one good ald more of the other, uutitris
onli reinforces the concrusion that
everyone can potentially gain from trade.

PART

t]NE International

T?ade Theory

the
The fundamental reason why trade potentially benefits a country is that it expands
possible to ledistribute
econonty's choices. This expansion of choice means that it is always
income in such a way that everyone gains from trade''
That everyone coild gainfrom trade unfortunately does not mean that everyone actualthe
ly does. In the real wodd, the presence of losers as well as winners from trade is one of
most important reasons why tl ade is not fiee.

0ptimalTrade PolicY
everyone were
Suppose a government wants to maximize the welfare of its population' If
The
exactly the same in tastes and in income there would be a straightforward solution:
off
as
as
well
individual
representative
the
make
policies
that
choose
government would
possible. In this homogeneous economy, free international trade would clearly serve the

goverurnent's objective
When people are not exactly alike, however, the government's problem is less well
person's
defined. The government must somehow weigh one person's gain against another
hurting
loss. If, for example, the Home govemment is relatively more concerned about
analysis
our
in
which
trade,
then
international
workers,
helping
landowners than about
govbenefited labor and hurt landowners in Home, might be a bad thing from the Home
ernment's point of view.
There aie many reasons why one grcup might matter more than another, but one of the
are
most cornpell:ing reasons is that some groups need special reatment because they
already r.elatively poor. There is widespread sympathy in the united states for lestrictions

oni-portofgarmentsandshoes,eventhoughtherestrictionsraiseconsumerprices'

becauie workeis in these industr.ies are already poorly paid. The gains 1hat affluent conto the U'S'
sumers would realize if more imports were allowed do not matter as much
public as the losses low-paid shoe and garment workers would sutfer'
people?
Does this mean that hade should be allowed only if it doesn't hurt lower-income
distriFew international economists would agree. In spite of the real importance of income
bution, most economists remain strongly in favor of morc or less free trade There are three
trade:
main reasons why econornists do nol generally stress the income distribution effects of

1. Income distribution effects are not specific to international trade. Every change in
a nation's economy, including technological progless, shifting consumer prefetences,
exhaustion of old resources and discovery of new ones, and so on, affects income distribution. If every change in the economy were allowed only aftel it had been examined
for its distributional effects, economic plogress could easily end up snarled in red tape.
2. It is always better to allow tlade and compensate those who are hurt by it than to
prohibit the tr.ade. (This applies to other fonns of economic change as well.) All modern
indust|ial countries provide some sort of "safety net" of income support programs
(such as unemployment benefits ancl subsidized retraining and relocation programs) that
can cushion the losses of groups huft by trade. Economists would argue tl-rat if this cushion is felt to be inadequate, more suppolt rather than less trade is the right answer.
3. Those wl]o stnd to lose from increased trade are typically better organized than
those who stand to gain. This irnbalance creates a bias in the political plocess that

TThe

genefal than this

argument that trade is beneficial because it enlarges an economy's choices is much more
pictufe. For a thorough discussion, see Paul sanruelson, "The cains flom Intemational Trade Once Again,"
Econonic Journcl '12 ( 1 962)' pp 820-829

cHAP-rER 4. Resources, Comparative Advantage, and Income

Distrilrution

?l

requres a counterweight. It is the traditional role of economists

to strongly support free
trade, pointing to the overall gains; those who are hun
usually have little tioubie making
their complaints heard.
Most economists, then, while acknowledging the effects of international
trade on income
distribution, believe that it is more imponant to stress the potential gains
fiom trade than the
-however,
possible losses to some groups in a country. Economisti
do not,
often have the
deciding voice in economic policy, especially when conflicting
int"r"r,, are at stake. Any
realistic understanding of how trade policy is determined musi
look at the actual motivations of policy.

Income Distribution and Trade politics

It is easy to see why groups that lose from trade lobby their governmenrs
ro restnct trade

and protect their incomes. You might expect that those

who guin f.o- tr.ade would lobby as
strongly as those who lose from it, but this is rarely the caie.
In the United States and in
most countdes, those who want trade limited are more effective
politically than those who
want it extended. Typically, those who gain from rrade in
any particular product are a
much less concentrated, infbrmed, and organized group than
those who lose.
A good example ofthis contrast between the two sldes is the u.S. sugar
industry. The
United States has limited imports of sugar for many years; at the
time of writing the price of
sugar in the U.S. market was about twice its price in the world
market. Most estimates put
the cost of U.S. consumers of this import lirnitation at about
$2 billion a year-that is, about
$8 a year for every man, woman, and child. The gains to producers are
much smalrer,
probably less than half as large.
If producers and consumers were equally able to get their interests represented, this
policy would never have been enacted. In absolute ter;s, however,
each consumer sul.ers
very little. Eight dollals a year is not much; furthermore, most
of the cost is hidden, because
most sugar is consumed as an ingredient in other foods rather
than purchased directly.
Thus most consumers are unawale that the imporr quota even
exists, let alone that it reduces
their standard of tiving. Even if they were a\&are,
$g i, oot a large enough sum to provoke
people into organizing protests and writing letters to
their cong.lssionai."p."sentatives.
The sugar producers'situation is quite different. The averag!
sugar producer gains thousands of doilars. a year finm the import quota. Furthermore,
*g- !.ou""., ar.e organized
into trade associations and cooperatives that actively pursue their
members'political inrerests' So the complaints of sugar producers about the effects
of imports are loudty and
effectively expressed.
As we will see in Chapters 8 through 11, the politics of import
restdction in the suga.
industry are an extren]e example of a kind ofpolitical process
that is common jn international trade- That world trade in general becanre steaclily fleer fron
1945 to l9g0 clepended, as rve will see in Chapter 9, on a special set of circumstances
tltat controlled what is
probably an inherent political biafagainst internatronal trade.

Empirical Evidence on the

Heckscher-Ohlin Model
Since the factor-proportions theory of trade is one of the most
influential ideas in intemational economics, it has been the subject of extensive ernpirical testing.

72

PART

trNE Internationl

trHAPTER 4 Resources, Comparative Advantage, and Income

Distribution

Tlade Theory

Income Distribution and the Beginnings of Trade Theory

The modem theory of intemational trade began with
the demonstration by David Ricardo, writing in l8l7'
that trade is mutually beneficial to countries' We studied Ricardo's nrodel in ChaPter
3. Ricudo used his model to

';*S,

argue for free trade, in

particular for an end to
the tariftt that restricted England-s imPorts
of food. Yet almost

surely the British

econorny of 1817 was
better described bY a

model with several

factors of productlon
than by the one-factot

model Ricardo Presented.

To understand the situation, recall that from the

beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 until the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, Britain was almost continuously at war
with France. This war inter{ered with Bt'itain's trade:
Privateers tpirates licensed by foreign governments)
raided shipping and the French attempted to impose
a blockade on British goods. Since Britain was an
exporter of manufactures and an importer of agricul-

tural products, this limitation of trade raised the relative price of food in Britain. Workers' wages and the
profits of manufcturers sufiered, but landowners
actually prospered duling the Iong war.
After the war, food prices in Britain fell. To avoid
the consequences, the politically influential landowners were able to get legislation, the so-called Com
Laws, tbat imposed fees to discourage impofiation

of

of the commodity structure of u.s. 'rrade:. American Economic

was arguing.
Ricarclo knerv that repeal of the Corn Laws would
make capitalists better off but landowners worse off'

Fron his point of view this was all to the good;

London businessman hirnself, he preferred hard-working capitalists to idle landed aristocrats. But he chose
to prtsent his argument in the form of a model that
assumed away issues of internal income distribution'
Why did he clo this? Almost surely the answer is
political: While Ricardo was in reality to some extent
representing the interest of a single group, he emphasized the gains to lhe nation as a whole. This was a
clever and Lhoroughly modern strategy. one that pio-

neered the use of economic theory as a political

instrument. Then as now, politics and intellectual
progress arc not incompatible: The Corn Laws were
repealed more than a century and a half ago, yet
Ricudo's model of trade remains one of the great
insiehts in econolnics.

States has been

Tests on ll,s, Bafa Until recently, and to some extent even now, the united
years ago much wealtha special case among countries. The united states was until a few
per person than
ier-than other countries, and U.S. workers visibly wor-ked with more capital

countnes
their counterpafts in otber countries. Even now, although some Western European
scale of countries
and Japan have caught up, the United States continues to be high o the

capitallabol ratios.

one would expect, tlren, that the united states would be arl expoltel of capital-intensive
the case
goods and an importer of labor-intensive goods. sulprising'ly, however, this was not
Wassi;n rhe 25 years after World War ll. In a famous study published in 1953, eco.omist
lv Leontief (winner of the Nobel Prize in 1973) forrncl that u.S. expolts were less capitalis the single
intensive than U.S. imports.8This result is known as the Leo'tiefparadox. It
biggest piece of evidence against tlle factor-prcportions theory'

Re-Examined"'
S"" L.*,ief,*D-estic Production ard Foreign Trade: The American CaPital Position
Ptoceedings ofthe Anterican Philosopltital Societ)'91 (1953)' pp 33l-349'

I :ou:cq-l9rrt Baldwin, "Determinants

I Review 6l (Much I97t), pp. 126_145.

gain. lt was against tllese Corn l-aws that Ricardo

Tesling the Heckscher-0hlin Model

as ranked by

Capitalpermilliondollars
$2,132,000 $1,876000
dollars
lD
131
j Capital-laborratio(dollarsperworker)
$17,916
$14,321
g.g
, Average years ofeducarion per worker
l0.l
0.0lgg
, Pro-portion ofengineers rnd scientists in work force
0.0255
I

I Labor (person-years) permillion

Table 4-2 illuskates the Leontiefparadox as well as other information

about u.S. trade
patterns. We compare the factors ofproduction used to produce
$i million worth of 1962
u.S. exports with those used to produce the same varue-of r962u.s. imports.
As the first
two lines in the table shou Leontief's paradox was still present in that
year: U.S. exports
were produced with a rower ratio of capital to labor than u.S.
imports. As the rest of the
table shows, however, other comparisons of imports and exports
are more in tine with
what one might expect. The U.S. exported products that were more
skiiled labor-intensive
than its imports as measured by average years of education. we
also tended to export products that were "technology-intensive," requiring more scientists
and engineers pe. unlt or
sales. These observations are consistent with the position of the
united s", u, u t ign_.hu
country, with a comparative advantage in sophisticated products.
why, then, do we observe tbe Leontief paradox? No one is quite sure. A prausible
expranation, however, might be the following: The united States has a special
aduantug" in pro-

ducing new products or goods made with innovative technologies such

as aircraft and
sophisticated computer chips. Such products may well be /ess capitar-intensive
than products whose technology has had tiure to mature and become
suitable for mass production
techniques. Thus the united States may be exporting goods
that heavily use skiued labor
and innovative entrepreneurship, while^ imporling heavy manufactures (such
as automobiles) that use large amounts of capital.e
Tests on Global ara Economists have arso attempted to
test the Heckscher-ohlin model
using data for a rarge number of countries. An impoitant study by
Harry p Bowen, Edward
E. Leamer, and Leo Sveikauskasr. was based on the idea, escribed-earlier,
trrui t uaing
goods is actually an indirect way of trading factors of production.
Thus if we

were to

cai

culate the factors of production embodied in a country's expofis and

imports, we should
find that a country is a net exporter of the factor.s of pr:oduction with which
it is relatively

abundantly endowed, a net importer of those with which it is relativery

p.or1y endowed.
Table 4-3 shows one of the key tests of Bowen et ar. For a sarnple
of 27 countries and
1 2 factors of production, the authrs
carculated the ratio of each country,s e'crowment of
each factor to the world supply. They then compared these rahos

wrth each countrv,s

- Later
studies poirrt to trre disappeara'ce of th Leontiefpamdox

by the early 1970s, For example, see Robefi M.

SternandKeithE.Maskus,..DeterminantsofthestructuieofU.s.-no.eigniiaoe,
l95g l6l,JoumaloJhtenu,
tionalEconomics lr (May r98l), pp.207124. Thesestudiessho*,io*"ver,thecontinuingimportanceof
human capiLal in explaining U.S. exports.
l0see
Bowen' Leamer, and Sveikauskas, "Multicountry, Multifctor Tests ol
the Factor Abundauce Tbeory,',

American Econonic Revietv

jj

(December l9g7), pp. 791_g09.

t,

PART

oNE International

cH.APTER

Tlade Theory

lrnslr+-r

TestinstheHecksch"er'0-hlinMld-9!

*rt9iel.rrd"t!e--,-,-I Capital
i Labor
i

Professional
Managerial
Clerical

Sares

workers

-Eegst'lY"q9":"".-:-.:
0'67
0 79

- -i

worKers
land

o.7o

lFot"rt ..-_

i
I
|

|
jI

-----"I
l

l*F.actionofcountiesforwhichnetexportsoffactorrunsinpredicteddirution'

^:
"Multicountry'
Leamer' and Leo Sveikauskas'
Sor."", H*y
Economic Review 17 (December 1987)'
American
Theory
I'
Abundance
Factor
the
of
Tests
P. Bowen,

Edwdd

| ier+oo.
'_--*.

Y:ldj.*tt
pp

- "- --- -

-. ...-,....

The case of the Missing Trade In an influential paper, Daniel rreflerr2 poinred
out a previously overlooked empirical problem with the Heckscher-ohlin model. He noted
that if

05?

r"na
---

when applied to North-south trade thal they do for overalr international

,.oa". a ,rri,
turns out to be true in most studies.llThese findings do not, however, contradict
the
observation that overall the Heckscher-ohlin model does not seem to
work very well,
because Nofth-south trade in manufactures accounts for onry about l0 percent;ftotai
world trade.

ij

0'63
070
:0'70
::

Production
Arable

intensive products such as chemicals and machinery, while chinese exports

still consist to
of simpler, labor-intensive products such as clothing. one wourd therefore
expect that the predictions of the Heckscher-ohlin model might look considerably
better

i;.{,
X::

i Service workers
i Asricultural workers

Resources, Comparative Advantage, and Income Distribution

a large degree

workers

j
iI Pu.n".
:-"'-:-

22
0'59

workers
workers

"-.." ."

l
I

one thinks about trade in goods as an indirect way of trading factors ofproduction,
this pre_
dicts not only the dircction but the volume of that trade. Faitor trade in general
turns ou-t 1o
be much smaller than the Heckscher-Ohlin model predicts.
A large part of the reason for this disparity comes from a false prediction of large-scare
trade in labor between rich and poor nations. consider the united States,
on one side, and
China on the other. The united states has abour 25 percent of worrd income
uut only auoui
percent
5
of the world's workers; so a simpre factor-proportions story wourd suggest that
u.S' imports of labor embodied in trade should be huge, something like four timeil
large
as the nation's own labor force. In fact, calculations of the factor
content of u.s. trade show
only small net imports of labor. conversely, China has less than 3 percent of
world income
but approximately I 5 percent of the world's workers; it therefore i.should', export
most

of

rnert

n-q rlade Borween chinu

ofProduct

its labor via trade-but it does nor.

Many trade economists now believe that this puzzre can be resolved only by dropping
the Heckscher-ohlin assumption that technologies are the same across countries.
The way
this resolution works is roughly as follows: If workers in the united states are much
mor!
efficient tlran those in China, then the "effective" labor supply in the united states
is much
larger compared with that of China than the raw data suggest-and hence the
expected
volume of trade between labor-abundant China and labor-scarce America is
correipond-

un@

C!in"99

Nonelectrical machinery

Clothing

ingly

less. As we pointed out earlier, technological differences across countnes

arc also one

likely explanation for the dramatic failure of factor-price equalization to hold, as docu-

mented in Table 4-1.

If one makes the working assumption that technological differences between countries
take a simple multiplicative form-that is, that a given set of inputs produces only
times
as much in china as it does in the united states, where 6 is some number
less than
is
possible to use data on factor trade to estimate the relative efficiency of production
in different countries. Table 4-5 shows Trefler's estimates for a sample of countries; they
suggest
that technological differences are in fact very large.
But in any case, once we conclude that technology varies across countries, why should we
assume that it is the same across all industries? why not suppose instead that
different countries have specific arcas of expertise: the British are good at .software, the Italians at furniture,
the Americans at action movies, and so on? In that case the patten ofinternational
trade might
be determined as much by these dilrering technological capacities as by factor endowments.

l-it

shareofworldincome.Ifthet.actor-pfoportionstheorywasright,acountrywouldalways
import factors for
;;f"";;;; for which tf," f*to' sh ex"eeaed the income share'

whichitwasless.Infact,fortwo+hirdsofthefactorsofproduction,traderaninthepredicteddirectionlessthanT0percentofthetime.ThisresultconfirmstheLeontiefparadox

onabroaderlevel:TradeottendoesnotruninthedirectionthattheHeckscher-ohlin
theory Predicts.
not

international trade does

on North-South Trade Although the overall pattem-of
North-South trade in
model'
pure HecksJher-Ohlin
seem to be very *"tt u""ount"i iot by"a
(as our case study on North-soulh trade
better
much
theory
ttre
fit
to
seems
manufactures
Tests

Consider' for example' Table 4-4' wficti-'s|gwi

and income distribution alreadf sugiested)
,.Big 3" advanced.economies (the united
and the
some elements of the trade betweeihina
Union')
European
the
and
States, Japan,
tt

are very different from the- e11ls

Clearly the goods that the Big 3 import from China
sophisticated' skilli" turn. And it's atro clear that Big 3 exports tend to be

"V

""p".t

" a-

2049.^rt"^"*'
12

*ive

Hrckscher and

hrin achance!" wertwirtschardrches

Daniel rrefler, '"rhe case of the Missing Trade and other Mys teries:'
ber 1995), pp. 1029-1046.

Ameic*

Archiv 130(lanuary 1994),pp.

Econonic Review,g5 (Drcem-

/o

PART

trNE International

cHAF,TER

Tlade Theory

Resources, Comparative Advantage, and Income Distribution

4. A country that has a rarge suppry of one resource rerative to its supply of
other resources
is abundant in that resource. A counry wil tend to produce retutiu"ty
more of goocls
that use irs abundant resources intensively. The result is the basic
Heckscher-bhlin
theory of trade: countries tend to export goods that are intensive in the
factors with
o.t7

Thailand
Hong Kong
Japan

I/"rt G=t-o!y
i

5.

0.40
0.70

-.

----''-.-.'-

0.78

Source;Trefler,'4rrcticanEconomicReview(December1995),p

ings of resources, and because t.ade changes relaiive prices, international

tr.ade has
strong income distribution effects. The owners of a country's abundant
factors gain from

1037'

which they are abundantly supplier:I.

Because changes in relative prices of goods have very strong effects
on the relative earn-

trade, but the owner.s of scarce factors lose.

6-

In an idealized model international trade wo,ld actualy lead to equalization of

the
prices of factors such as labor and capital between countries.
In realiry, comple teJitctor-

price equalization is not observecl because ofwide differences in resources,

bariiers to
trade, and international differences in technoloEv.
7.Trad'e produces loseLs as weil as winners. guiih.r" are stil gains
fr.om trade in the
limited sense that the winners could compenste the losers, and everyone
wourd be
better off.

lmplications ol the Tests

international economists in
The mixed results of tests of the factor-proportions theory place
in Chaptlr 3 that empirical evidence broadly supports the

a difficult position. We saw

which their labor is espeRicardian odel's prediction that countries will export goods in
Ricardian model as
cially productive. Most international economists, however, regard the
contrast, the HeckscherBy
trade.
of
international
model
basic
as
their
to
serve
too imited
it aliows a simultaOhlin model has long occupied a central placc in trade theory' because
of trade. so the model that
neous treatment of isiues of income distribution and the pattern

8' Most economists do not regard the effects of international trade on income distrjbution

as a good reason to limit this h'ade. In its distributional effects,

tfade is no different from
many other forms of economic change, which are not normally regulated.
Further_
more, economists would prefer to add'ess the problem of income distribution
directlv.
rather than by interfering wjth trade flows.
9. Nonetheless, in the actual politics of trade poricy income distribution
is of cruciar
lmportance. This is true in particular because those who lose from trade
are usually a
much more informed, cohesive, and organized group than those who gain.
10. Empirical evidence is mixed o' the Heckscher-ohiin model,
but moit r.esear.chers do
not believe that differcnces in resources alone can explain the pattern
of world trade or
world factor prices. Instead, it seems to be necessary to allow for substantial
interna_
tional differences in technorogy. Nonetheless, the Heckscher-ohlin moder
is extremely
useful, especially as a way to anaryze the effects of trade on income
distribution.

Dredictstradebestistoolimitingforotherpulposes,whilethereisbynowstrongevidence
against the pure Heckscher-Ohlin model.
the actual patWhile the Heckscher-Ohlin model has been less successful at explaining

tensofintel.nationaltradethanonemighthope,itremainsvitalforunderstandingthe
effectsoftrade,especiallyitseffectsonthedistributionofincome'Indeed'thegrowthof
of the North's
tiorttr-Souttr trade-in manufactures-a trade in which the factor intensity

importsisverydifferentfromthatofitseKports-hasbroughtthefactof'proportions
policy'
aoproach into ihe center of practical debates over intemational trade

The Heckscher-Ohlin Model is a criticai concept for this

course. MyEconlab Practice Tests and Study Plan can help
to page
you master this important concept by helping you focus your study effort' Tum
4? for instructions and then log in to wwwrnyeconlab'conlkrugman'
Ger^heedore*rve

SUMMARY

two goods are

1. To understand the role of resources in trade we clevelop a model in which
intensiin
thek
goods
differ
two
The
factor
production.
of
two
factors
produced using
r fy, that is, at any gtven wage-rental ratio, production of one ol the goods will use a
higher ratio of land to labor than production of the other'
between d.re
2. AJtong as a country produces both goods, there is a one-to-one relationship
the goods A rise
relativJprices of gc,oJs and the relative prices of/actors used to produce
in
in the relative price of the labor-intensive good will shift the distribution of income
in
terms of
rise
will
of
labpr
real
wage
The
strongly:
very
so
<lo
and
will
favor of labor.

bothgoods,whiletherealincomeoflanclownerswillfallintermsofbothgoods.
possibilities,
3. An increase in the supply of one factor of production expands production

of the good
but in a strongly biasii way: At tnchanged relative goods prices' the output
falls'
intensive in that factor rises while the output of the other good actually

,t

::]
.i.:

KEY TERMS
abundant factor, p. 64
biased expansion of prcduction possibilities, p. 60

1ctor prices, p. 54
factor-proportions they, p. 50
Heckscher,Ohlin theory, p. 50

budget constaint, p. 62
equalization of factor prices, p. 65
factor abundmce, p. 50

Leontiefparadox, p. 72
scarce factor, p. 64
specific factor, p. 66

factor intensiLy, p. 50

PROBLEMS
1. In the united States where land is cheap, the ratio ofland to labor used in cattle
raising
is higher than that of land used in wheat growing. But in more crowded countries,
where land is expensive and labo'is cheap, it is common to raise cows by using less
land and more labor than Americars use to grow wheat. Can we still say that raising
cattle is land-intensive
with farming wheat? Why or why not?
- suppose that at current compared
2.
factor priies cloth is produced using 20 hours of labor for each
acre of land, and food is pr-oduced using only 5 hours of labor per acre of land.

78

FART

oNE International

T?ade Theory

a, Suppose that the economy's total resources are 600 hours of labor and 60 acres of
land. Use a diagram determine the allocation of resources'
b. Now suppose that the labor supply increases first to 800, then 1,000, then l'200
hours. Using a diagram like Figure 4-9, luace out the changing allocation of
resources.

c. What would happen if the labor supply were to increase even further?
3. "The world's poorest countries cannot find anything to export. There is no resource that
is abundant--+ertainly not capital nor land, and in small poor nations not even labor is
abundant." Discuss.

4. The U.S. Iabor movement-which mostly represents blue-collar workers rather than
professionals and highly educated workers-has traditionally favored limits on imports
from less-affluent countries. Is this a shortsighted policy or a rational one in view of the
lnreres of union members? How does the answer depend on the model of trade?

5. Recently, computer programrners in developing countries such as India have begun

doing work formerly done in the United States. This shift has undoubtedly led to substantial pay cuts for some prograrnmers in the United States. Answer the following two
questions: How is this possib'le when the wages of skilled labor are rising in the United
States as a whole? What argument would trade economists make against seeing these
wage cuts as a reason to block outsourcing of computer progranming?

6. Explain why the Leontief paradox and the more recent Bowen, Leamer, and
Sveikauskas results reported in the text contradict the factor-proportions theory.

7. In the discussion of ernpirical results on the Heckscher-Ohlin model, we noted that

recent work suggests that the efnciency of factors of production seems to differ internationally. Explain how this would affect the concept of factor-price equalization.

FURTHER READING
Donald Davis and David Weinsteil. 'An Account of Global Factor Trade." National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 6785, 1998. The authors review the history of tests of the

Heckscher-Ohlin model and propose a modified version-backed by extensive statistical

analysis--that allows for technology differences, specialization, and transPortation costs.
Alan Deardorff. 'Testing Trade Theories and Predicting Trade Flows," in Ronald W Jones md Peter
B. Kenen, eds. Haftdbook oJ Intemational Economics. Vol. 1. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1984.
A survey of empirical evidence on trade theories, especially the factor-proportions thory.
Gordo Hanson and Ann Hanison. "Trade md Wage Inequality in Mexico I' Industrial and lnbor Relations Reyiew 52 ( 1999), pp. 27 1-288. A careful study of the effects of trade on income inequality
in our neuest neighbor, showing that frctor prices have moved in the opposite direction from what
one might have expected from a simple factor-proportions model. The authors also put forwud
hypotheses about why this may have happened
Ronald W. Jones. "Factor Proportions and the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem." Review of Economic Studies 24 (1956), pp. 1-10. Exrends Sarnuelson's 1948-1949 analysis (cited below), which focuses
primarily on the relationsl']jp between trade and income distribution, into an overall model of international trade.
Ronald W. Jones. "The Srructure of Simple General Equilibrium Models." Journal oJ Political Econ'
oruy 73 (1965), pp. 557-572. A rcstatement 01'the Heckscher-Ohlin-Sanuelson model in terms of
elegant algebra.
Ronald W. Jones and J. Peter Neary. "The Positive Theory of Inlernational Trade," in Ronald W. Jones
and Peter B. Kenen, eds. Handbook oJ Intentational Economics. Vol. l..Amsterdam: North-Hollmd, 1984. An up-to-date survey of many trade theories, including the factor-proportions theory.

HAFTER 4 Resources, Comparative

Advantage, and Income Distribution

7g

Bertil ohlin' Interregionar

The original

ohlil

and rntematiorcr Trade. cambridge:

Havard university press, 1g33.
book prcsenting the factor-prop"*""r
remains interesting_its
"?"r "r ""de
of trade contrasts witi tr," ,or" .ieo.ou.
and simplified matrrematicai

;"#:i:liri,:l,view

Robeft Reich' The work of Natiore. New

hliffi:r;ffi"$:il.,Te

york

Basic Books, lggl. An influentiar tract

that argues that

united states in th"

*",r"".y

r, *ia"ning tr," gup-u"i*""i

Paul Samuelson' 'llnternational rrade

and the Equalisation of Factor prices.,,
E'con omic Journar 5g
(1948), pp. 163-184, and "IntemationarFactoiprice
Again;, Economic Joumar
59 (1949)' pp. r81-196. The most influential
formalize;;ihlin,s ideas is paul samuerson
(again!), whose two Economic Joumlpaper.
on the rub;"ci*"-"fur*1"..

Eq;;i.;i;;;"."