Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

The Heckscher-Ohlin Model Between 1400 and 2000: When It Explained Factor Price Convergence, When It Did Not, and Why

Contents:

Author Info

  • Kevin H. O'Rourke
  • Jeffrey G. Williamson

Abstract

There are two contrasting views of pre-19th century trade and globalization. First, there are the world history scholars like Andre Gunder Frank who attach globalization 'big bang' significance to the dates 1492 (Christopher Colombus stumbles on the Americas in search of spices) and 1498 (Vasco da Gama makes an end run around Africa and snatches monopoly rents away from the Arab and Venetian spice traders). Such scholars are on the side of Adam Smith who believed that these were the two most important events in recorded history. Second, there is the view that the world economy was fragmented and completely de- globalized before the 19th century. This paper offers a novel way to discriminate between these two competing views and we use it to show that there is no evidence that the Ages of Discovery and Commerce had the economic impact on the global economy that world historians assign to them, while there is plenty of evidence of a very big bang in the 19th century. The test involves a close look at the connections between factor prices, commodity prices and endowments world wide.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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.
File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7411.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7411.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Nov 1999
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7411

Note: DAE ITI
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

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
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.:
as in new window
  1. Taylor, Alan M. & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1997. "Convergence in the age of mass migration," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(01), pages 27-63, April.
  2. Douglas A. Irwin, 1990. "Mercantilism as strategic trade policy: the Anglo-Dutch rivalry for the East India trade," International Finance Discussion Papers 392, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  3. Alan M. Taylor, 1996. "Sources of Convergence in the Late Nineteenth Century," NBER Working Papers 5806, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Huber, J Richard, 1971. "Effect on Prices of Japan's Entry into World Commerce after 1858," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(3), pages 614-28, May-June.
  5. O'Rourke, Kevin & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1994. "Late Nineteenth-Century Anglo-American Factor-Price Convergence: Were Heckscher and Ohlin Right?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(04), pages 892-916, December.
  6. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119, July.
  7. Fogel, Robert William, 1967. "The Specification Problem in Economic History," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(03), pages 283-308, September.
  8. O'Rourke Kevin, 1994. "The Repeal of the Corn Laws and Irish Emigration," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 120-138, January.
  9. Mankiw, N Gregory & Romer, David & Weil, David N, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(2), pages 407-37, May.
  10. Maurice Obstfeld., 1994. "International Capital Mobility in the 1990s," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C94-037, University of California at Berkeley.
  11. Maurice Obstfeld & Alan M. Taylor, 1999. "The Great Depression as a Watershed: International Capital Mobility over the Long Run," NBER Working Papers 5960, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Johansen, Soren, 1991. "Estimation and Hypothesis Testing of Cointegration Vectors in Gaussian Vector Autoregressive Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(6), pages 1551-80, November.
  13. repec:fth:coluec:491 is not listed on IDEAS
  14. Matthew J. Slaughter, 1995. "The Antebellum Transportation Revolution and Factor-Price Convergence," NBER Working Papers 5303, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  15. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 1-118.
  16. Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1990. "The impact of the Corn Laws just prior to repeal," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 123-156, April.
  17. Johansen, Soren, 1995. "Likelihood-Based Inference in Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive Models," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198774501, July.
  18. Temin, Peter, 1966. "Labor Scarcity and the Problem of American Industrial Efficiency in the 1850's," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(03), pages 277-298, September.
  19. Wood, Adrian, 1995. "North-South Trade, Employment and Inequality: Changing Fortunes in a Skill-Driven World," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198290155, July.
  20. O'Rourke, Kevin H & Taylor, Alan M & Williamson, Jeffrey G, 1996. "Factor Price Convergence in the Late Nineteenth Century," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(3), pages 499-530, August.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Rassekh, Farhad, 2010. "Is Stolper-Samuelson dangerous and FPE a failure?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 555-561, October.
  2. Ekeland, Ivar & Guesnerie, Roger, 2010. "The geometry of global production and factor price equalisation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(5), pages 666-690, September.
  3. Grafe, Regina, . "Atlantic trade and regional specialisation in nothern Spain 1550-1650: an integrated trade theory-institutional organisation approach," Open Access publications from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid info:hdl:10016/397, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
  4. Federico S. Mandelman & Andrei Zlate, 2010. "Immigration, remittances, and business cycles," Working Paper 2008-25, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
  5. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-00589105 is not listed on IDEAS

Lists

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:
  1. Model Heckscher–Ohlin in Wikipedia (Indonesian)
  2. ヘクシャー＝オリーン・モデル in Wikipedia (Japanese)
  3. Heckscher–Ohlin model in Wikipedia (English)

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7411

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.