Testing the General Validity of the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem

Heckscher–ohlin Trade Theory

Eli Heckscher (1919) and Bertil Ohlin (1933) laid the groundwork for substantial developments in the theory of international trade by focusing on the relationships between the composition of countries’ factor endowments and commodity trade patterns as well as the consequences of free trade for the functional distribution of income within countries. From the outset general equilibrium forms of a...

Refutable Implications of the Heckscher-Ohlin Model

Previous empirical tests have found that,contrary to the conclusions of the HeckscherOhlin model, the factor composition of traded goods fails to reveal relative factor abundance rankings. Using a nonparametric approach, this paper discusses the refutability of two of the assumptions of the HO model: that countries have identical homothetic preferences and identical constant returns to scale pr...

Heckscher-Ohlin explained by Walras

The Heckscher-Ohlin model with arbitrary number of goods, factors and countries (consumers) and no restrictions on factor trading is shown to be equivalent to an exchange model whose goods are the productive factors while consumer’s indirect demands for factors are derived from their actual demands for consumption goods. This equivalence enables one to import properties like the pathconnectedne...

The Development and Testing of Heckscher-Ohlin Trade Models: A Review

Estimating the Heckscher–Ohlin model: Inverting the inverse matrix

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...