IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/irapec/v30y2016i6p693-713.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Revisiting Leontief’s paradox

Author

Listed:
  • Christina Paraskevopoulou
  • Persefoni Tsaliki
  • Lefteris Tsoulfidis

Abstract

According to the popular Heckscher-Ohlin model of international trade, a country is expected to export (import) those products whose production requires the intensive use of the factor of production that is in relative abundance (scarcity). Leontief (1953), using input–output data of the US economy for the year 1947, found that the US, an overwhelmingly capital-abundant country, exported labour-intensive products and imported capital-intensive ones. Clearly, the results contradicted the predictions of the Heckscher-Ohlin model and they were characterised as ‘Leontief’s paradox’. A number of explanations for the so-called paradox were offered and this paper briefly, but critically, evaluates these explanations as it examines whether or not Leontief’s results persist in the case of the US economy during the period 1998–2012.

Suggested Citation

  • Christina Paraskevopoulou & Persefoni Tsaliki & Lefteris Tsoulfidis, 2016. "Revisiting Leontief’s paradox," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(6), pages 693-713, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:irapec:v:30:y:2016:i:6:p:693-713
    DOI: 10.1080/02692171.2016.1173655
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02692171.2016.1173655
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/02692171.2016.1173655?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ms. Dalia S Hakura, 1999. "A Test of the General Validity of the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem for Trade in the European Community," IMF Working Papers 1999/070, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Zonghie Han & Bertram Schefold, 2006. "An empirical investigation of paradoxes: reswitching and reverse capital deepening in capital theory," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(5), pages 737-765, September.
    3. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2001. "An Account of Global Factor Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1423-1453, December.
    4. Leamer, Edward E, 1980. "The Leontief Paradox, Reconsidered," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(3), pages 495-503, June.
    5. Tsao, J T H, 1980. "Factor Endowments and Trade of the United States and Taiwan: The Leontief Paradox Re-Examined," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 5(3/4), pages 245-253.
    6. Lefteris Tsoulfidis & Theodore Mariolis, 2007. "Labour Values, Prices of Production and the Effects of Income Distribution: Evidence from the Greek Economy," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(4), pages 425-437.
    7. Seev Hirsch, 1979. "The leontief paradox in a multi-country setting: Reply," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 115(1), pages 146-148, March.
    8. 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.
    9. Seev Hirsch, 1977. "The leontief paradox in a multi-country setting," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 113(3), pages 407-422, September.
    10. Steedman, Ian & Metcalfe, J. S., 1977. "Reswitching, primary inputs and the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson theory of trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 201-208, May.
    11. Erik Dietzenbacher & Umed Temurshoev, 2012. "Input-output impact analysis in current or constant prices: does it matter?," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 1(1), pages 1-18, December.
    12. Persefoni Tsaliki, 2008. "Economic development, human capital and technical change: the question of machinery revisited," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 55(4), pages 363-371, December.
    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. Theodore Mariolis & Lefteris Tsoulfidis, 2018. "Less Is More: Capital Theory And Almost Irregular-Uncontrollable Actual Economies," Contributions to Political Economy, Oxford University Press, vol. 37(1), pages 65-88.

    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. Elhanan Helpman, 1999. "The Structure of Foreign Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 121-144, Spring.
    2. Antoni Estevadeordal & Alan M. Taylor, 2002. "A Century of Missing Trade?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 383-393, March.
    3. Ciaian, Pavel & Kancs, d'Artis & Pokrivcak, Jan, 2011. "Comparative Advantages, Transaction Costs and Factor Content in Agricultural Trade: Empirical Evidence from the CEE - Vantaggi comparati, costi di transazione e contenuto dei fattori nel commercio agr," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 64(1), pages 67-101.
    4. Assaf Zimring, 2019. "Testing the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek theory with a natural experiment," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(1), pages 58-92, February.
    5. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2002. "What Role for Empirics in International Trade?," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 57(04), pages 441-468, December.
    6. Francisco Requena & Andrés Artal & Juana Castillo, 2008. "Testing Heckscher— Ohlin—Vanek Model Using Spanish Regional Data," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 31(2), pages 159-184, April.
    7. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2001. "Do Factor Endowments Matter for North-North Trade?," NBER Working Papers 8516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Kagawa, Shigemi, 2008. "How does Japanese compliance with the Kyoto Protocol affect environmental productivity in China and Japan?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 173-188, June.
    9. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2001. "An Account of Global Factor Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1423-1453, December.
    10. Daniel Bernhofen, 2010. "The Empirics of General Equilibrium Tade Theory: What Have we Learned?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3242, CESifo.
    11. Zeddies, Götz, 2011. "Factor Content of Intra-European Trade Flows," IWH Discussion Papers 6/2011, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    12. Antoni Estevadeordal & Alan M. Taylor, 2002. "Testing Trade Theory in Ohlin's Time," NBER Working Papers 8842, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Nishioka, Shuichiro, 2013. "R&D, trade in intermediate inputs, and the comparative advantage of advanced countries," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 96-110.
    14. Crozet, Matthieu & Trionfetti, Federico, 2011. "Comparative Advantage and Within-Industry Firms Performance," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 1101, CEPREMAP.
    15. Crozet, Matthieu & Trionfetti, Federico, 2013. "Firm-level comparative advantage," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 321-328.
    16. Clément Nedoncelle, 2016. "Trade Costs and Current Accounts," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(10), pages 1653-1672, October.
    17. Guo, Baoping, 2015. "Leontief Paradox Explored A New Trade Pattern When Countries Have Different Technologies," MPRA Paper 96929, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Nov 2019.
    18. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2001. "The Factor Content of Trade," NBER Working Papers 8637, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Koebel, Bertrand M. & Levet, Anne-Laure & Nguyen-Van, Phu & Purohoo, Indradev & Guinard, Ludovic, 2016. "Productivity, resource endowment and trade performance of the wood product sector," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 24-35.
    20. Elhanan Helpman, 1998. "Explaining the structure of foreign trade: Where do we stand?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 134(4), pages 573-589, December.

    More about this item

    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:taf:irapec:v:30:y:2016:i:6:p:693-713. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CIRA20 .

    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.