IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ysm/somwrk/ysm287.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Factor Price Equalization in the UK?

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew B. Bernard

    (Tuck School of Business)

  • Stephen J. Redding

    (London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE))

  • Peter K. Schott

    (School of Management)

  • Helen Simpson

    (General)

Abstract

This paper develops a general test of factor price equalization that is robust to unobserved regional productivity differences, unobserved region-industry factor quality differences and variation in production technology across industries. We test relative factor price equalization across regions of the UK. Although the UK is small and densely-populated, we find evidence of statistically significant and economically important departures from relative factor price equalization. Our estimates suggest three distinct relative factor price areas with a clear spatial structure. We explore explanations for these findings, including multiple cones of diversification, region-industry technology differences, agglomeration and increasing returns to scale.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott & Helen Simpson, 2002. "Factor Price Equalization in the UK?," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm287, Yale School of Management.
  • Handle: RePEc:ysm:somwrk:ysm287
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=316585
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antonio Ciccone, 1997. "Technology diffusion and the spatial distribution of wages in the US," Economics Working Papers 500, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Dec 1999.
    2. Machin, Stephen, 1996. "Wage Inequality in the UK," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 47-64, Spring.
    3. Bernard, Andrew & Redding, Stephen & Simpson, Helen & Schott, Peter, 2002. "Factor Price Equalization in the UK?," CEPR Discussion Papers 3523, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Peter K. Schott, 2001. "Factor Price Equality and the Economies of the United States," NBER Working Papers 8068, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin M. Murphy, 1992. "Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(1), pages 35-78.
    6. Davis, Donald R. & David E. Weinstein & Scott C. Bradford & Kazushige Shimpo, 1997. "Using International and Japanese Regional Data to Determine When the Factor Abundance Theory of Trade Works," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 421-446, June.
    7. Gavin Cameron & John Muellbauer, 1998. "The Housing Market and Regional Commuting and Migration Choices," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 45(4), pages 420-446, September.
    8. Debaere, Peter & Demiroglu, Ufuk, 2003. "On the similarity of country endowments," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 101-136, January.
    9. Richard Disney & Jonathan Haskel & Ylva Heden, 2003. "Restructuring and productivity growth in uk manufacturing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(489), pages 666-694, July.
    10. Rachel Griffith, 1999. "Using the ARD establishment level data to look at foreign ownership and productivity in the UK," IFS Working Papers W99/06, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    11. Peter K. Schott, 2003. "One Size Fits All? Heckscher-Ohlin Specialization in Global Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 686-708, June.
    12. Griffith, Rachel, 1999. "Using the ARD Establishment Level Data to Look at Foreign Ownership and Productivity in the United Kingdom," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(456), pages 416-442, June.
    13. Eli Bekman & John Bound & Stephen Machin, 1998. "Implications of Skill-Biased Technological Change: International Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(4), pages 1245-1279.
    14. Katz, Lawrence F. & Autor, David H., 1999. "Changes in the wage structure and earnings inequality," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 26, pages 1463-1555, Elsevier.
    15. Devereux, Michael P. & Griffith, Rachel & Simpson, Helen, 2004. "The geographic distribution of production activity in the UK," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 533-564, September.
    16. Haskel, Jonathan & Slaughter, Matthew J, 2001. "Trade, Technology and U.K. Wage Inequality," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(468), pages 163-187, January.
    17. Trefler, Daniel, 1993. "International Factor Price Differences: Leontief Was Right!," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(6), pages 961-987, December.
    18. Ciccone, Antonio & Hall, Robert E, 1996. "Productivity and the Density of Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 54-70, March.
    19. Peter K. Schott, 2001. "Do Rich and Poor Countries Specialize in a Different Mix of Goods? Evidence from Product-Level US Trade Data," NBER Working Papers 8492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. H. Hanson, Gordon, 2005. "Market potential, increasing returns and geographic concentration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 1-24, September.
    21. Steve Machin & Amanda Gosling, 1994. "What happened to the wages of men since the mid-1960s," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 15(4), pages 63-87, November.
    22. Cameron, Gavin & Muellbauer, John, 2000. "Earnings Biases in the United Kingdom Regional Accounts: Some Economic Policy and Research Implications," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(464), pages 412-429, June.
    23. Leamer, E.E., 1995. "The Heckscher-Ohlin Model in Theory and Practice," Princeton Studies in International Economics 77, International Economics Section, Departement of Economics Princeton University,.
    24. Bernstein, Jeffrey R. & Weinstein, David E., 2002. "Do endowments predict the location of production?: Evidence from national and international data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 55-76, January.
    25. Stephen Machin & John Van Reenen, 1998. "Technology and Changes in Skill Structure: Evidence from Seven OECD Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(4), pages 1215-1244.
    26. Repetto, A. & Ventura, J., 1997. "The Leontief-Trefler Hypothesis and Factor Price Insensitivity," Working papers 97-13, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    27. Hanson, Gordon H. & Slaughter, Matthew J., 2002. "Labor-market adjustment in open economies: Evidence from US states," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 3-29, June.
    28. Gavin Cameron & John Muellbauer, 2001. "Earnings, unemployment, and housing in Britain," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 203-220.
    29. Robert Z. Lawrence & Matthew J. Slaughter, 1993. "International Trade and American Wages in the 1980s: Giant Sucking Sound or Small Hiccup?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(2 Microec), pages 161-226.
    30. Hughes, Gordon & McCormick, Barry, 1994. "Did Migration in the 1980s Narrow the North-South Divide?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 61(244), pages 509-527, November.
    31. Gilles Duranton & Vassilis Monastiriotis, 2002. "Mind the Gaps: The Evolution of Regional Earnings Inequalities in the U.K., 1982–1997," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 219-256, May.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Bernard, Andrew & Redding, Stephen & Simpson, Helen & Schott, Peter, 2002. "Factor Price Equalization in the UK?," CEPR Discussion Papers 3523, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Rice, Patricia & Venables, Anthony J. & Patacchini, Eleonora, 2006. "Spatial determinants of productivity: Analysis for the regions of Great Britain," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 727-752, November.
    3. Goolsbee, Austan, 2004. "The impact of the corporate income tax: evidence from state organizational form data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(11), pages 2283-2299, September.
    4. Leena Kerkelä & Aki Kangasharju & Sari Pekkala, 2003. "Factor Price Equalization in Finland," ERSA conference papers ersa03p394, European Regional Science Association.
    5. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen Redding & Peter K. Schott & Helen Simpson, 2003. "Relative wage variation and industry location," IFS Working Papers W03/17, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    6. Patricia Rice & Anthony Venables, 2003. "Equilibrium Regional Disparities: Theory and British Evidence," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(6-7), pages 675-686.
    7. Xiang, Chong, 2007. "Diversification cones, trade costs and factor market linkages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 448-466, April.
    8. Barnett, Alina & Batten, Sandra & Chiu, Adrian & Franklin, Jeremy & Sebastia-Barriel, Maria, 2014. "The UK productivity puzzle," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 54(2), pages 114-128.
    9. Carbajal-De-Nova, Carolina, 2017. "Wage gaps and manufacturing output: A comparison between production workers in Mexico and the United States," MPRA Paper 93099, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 14 Sep 2017.
    10. Christian Dustmann & Albrecht Glitz, 2015. "How Do Industries and Firms Respond to Changes in Local Labor Supply?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(3), pages 711-750.
    11. Ethan Lewis, 2003. "Local, open economies within the U.S.: how do industries respond to immigration?," Working Papers 04-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    12. Ethan Lewis, 2004. "How did the Miami labor market absorb the Mariel immigrants?," Working Papers 04-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    13. Eiichi Tomiura, 2005. "Factor Price Equalization In Japanese Regions," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 441-456, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott & Helen Simpson, 2008. "Relative Wage Variation and Industry Location in the United Kingdom," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(4), pages 431-459, August.
    2. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Peter K. Schott, 2001. "Factor Price Equality and the Economies of the United States," NBER Working Papers 8068, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2013. "Testing for Factor Price Equality with Unobserved Differences in Factor Quality or Productivity," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 135-163, May.
    4. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen Redding & Peter K. Schott & Helen Simpson, 2003. "Relative wage variation and industry location," IFS Working Papers W03/17, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    5. Peter K. Schott, 2003. "One Size Fits All? Heckscher-Ohlin Specialization in Global Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 686-708, June.
    6. Robert Feenstra & Gordon Hanson, 2001. "Global Production Sharing and Rising Inequality: A Survey of Trade and Wages," NBER Working Papers 8372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Lorenzo Rotunno & Adrian Wood, 2015. "Wages and endowments in a globalised world," Economics Papers 2015-W11, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    8. Stephen Redding & Mercedes Vera-Martin, 2006. "Factor Endowments and Production in European Regions," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 142(1), pages 1-32, April.
    9. Gandal, Neil & Hanson, Gordon H. & Slaughter, M.J.Matthew J., 2004. "Technology, trade, and adjustment to immigration in Israel," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 403-428, April.
    10. Sabine Engelmann, 2014. "International trade, technological change and wage inequality in the UK economy," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 223-246, May.
    11. Manasse, Paolo & Stanca, Luca & Turrini, Alessandro, 2004. "Wage premia and skill upgrading in Italy: why didn't the hound bark?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 59-83, February.
    12. Rotunno, Lorenzo & Wood, Adrian, 2020. "Wage inequality and skill supplies in a globalised world," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 529-547.
    13. Patrick A. Puhani, 2008. "Transatlantic Differences in Labour Markets: Changes in Wage and Non‐Employment Structures in the 1980s and the 1990s," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 9(3), pages 312-338, August.
    14. Ethan Lewis, 2004. "How did the Miami labor market absorb the Mariel immigrants?," Working Papers 04-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    15. Puhani, Patrick A., 2003. "A Test of the 'Krugman Hypothesis' for the United States, Britain, and Western Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-18, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    16. Daniel Bernhofen, 2010. "The Empirics of General Equilibrium Tade Theory: What Have we Learned?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3242, CESifo.
    17. Ethan Lewis, 2003. "Local, open economies within the U.S.: how do industries respond to immigration?," Working Papers 04-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    18. Xiang, Chong, 2007. "Diversification cones, trade costs and factor market linkages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 448-466, April.
    19. Rosario Crinò, 2009. "Offshoring, Multinationals And Labour Market: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 197-249, April.
    20. Debaere, Peter, 2004. "Does lumpiness matter in an open economy?: Studying international economics with regional data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 485-501, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Relative Factor Prices; Diversification Cones; Technology; Economic Geography;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ysm:somwrk:ysm287. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/smyalus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.