Due primarily to transport improvements, commodity prices in Britain and America tended to equalize 1870-1913. This commodity price equalization was not simply manifested by the great New World grain invasion of Europe. Rather, it can be documented for intermediate primary products and manufactures as well. Heckscher and, Ohlin, writing in 1919 and 1924, thought that these events should have contributed to factor price equalization. Based on Williamson's research reported elsewhere, Anglo-American real wages did converge over this period, and it was part of a general convergence between the Old and New World. This paper applies the venerable Heckscher-Ohlin trade model to the late 19th century Anglo-American experience and finds that they were right: at least half of the real wage convergence observed can be assigned to commodity price equalization. Furthermore, these events also had profound influences on relative land and capital scarcities. It appears that this late 19th century episode was the dramatic start of world commodity and factor market integration that is still ongoing today.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Historical Working Papers with number
0037.
Length: Date of creation: Jun 1992 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberhi:0037
Note: DAE Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
Related research
Keywords:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)