IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/igi/igierp/321.html

Specialization Patterns and the Factor Bias of Technology

Author

Listed:
  • Alejandro Cuñat
  • Marco Maffezzoli

Abstract

Development accounting exercises based on an aggregate production function find technology is biased in favor of a country's abundant production factors. We provide an explanation to this finding based on the Heckscher-Ohlin model. Countries trade and specialize in the industries that use intensively the production factors they are abundantly endowed with. For given factor endowment ratios, this implies smaller international differences in factor price ratios than under autarky. Thus, when measuring the factor bias of technology with the same aggregate production function for all countries, they appear to have an abundant-factor bias in their technologies.

Suggested Citation

  • Alejandro Cuñat & Marco Maffezzoli, 2007. "Specialization Patterns and the Factor Bias of Technology," Working Papers 321, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    • Handle: RePEc:igi:igierp:321
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.unibocconi.it/igier/igi/wp/2007/321.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 679-741, Elsevier.
    2. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for cross-country income differences," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3567, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Alejandro Cuñat & Marco Maffezzoli, 2007. "Can Comparative Advantage Explain the Growth of us Trade?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 583-602, April.
    4. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for cross-country income differences," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 5266, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Francesco Caselli & Wilbur John Coleman II, 2006. "The World Technology Frontier," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 499-522, June.
    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. Baldwin, Richard & Haaland, Jan I. & Venables, Anthony J., 2025. "Technical change, jobs, and wages in the global economy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).

    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. Battisti, Michele & Gatto, Massimo Del & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2022. "Skill-biased technical change and labor market inefficiency," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. Paul Conway & Sean Dougherty & Artur Radziwill, 2010. "Long-term growth and policy challenges in the large emerging economies," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 755, OECD Publishing.
    3. Michael Schymura & Andreas Löschel, 2012. "Trade and the Environment: An Application of the WIOD Database," EcoMod2012 3948, EcoMod.
    4. Harald Fadinger & Pablo Fleiss, 2011. "Trade and Sectoral Productivity," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(555), pages 958-989, September.
    5. Angrist,Noam & Djankov,Simeon & Goldberg,Pinelopi Koujianou & Patrinos,Harry Anthony, 2019. "Measuring Human Capital," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8742, The World Bank.
    6. Jakub Growiec & Łukasz Marć, 2009. "Produktywność czynników w krajach OECD," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 9, pages 23-47.
    7. Benjamin F. Jones, 2008. "The Knowledge Trap: Human Capital and Development Reconsidered," NBER Working Papers 14138, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Zsofia Barany & Christian Siegel, 2021. "Engines of sectoral labor productivity growth," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 39, pages 304-343, January.
    9. Matthias Busse & José L. Groizard, 2008. "Technology Trade in Economic Development," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 569-592, April.
    10. Zymek, Robert, 2015. "Factor proportions and the growth of world trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 42-53.
    11. Robert Zymek & Alejandro Cunat, 2017. "International Value-Added Linkages in Development Accounting," 2017 Meeting Papers 1136, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Ana Hidalgo-Cabrillana & Zoë Kuehn & Cristina Lopez-Mayan, 2017. "Development accounting using PIAAC data," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 373-399, November.
    13. Jakub Growiec, 2013. "On the measurement of technological progress across countries," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 44(5), pages 467-504.
    14. Anurag Banerjee & Parantap Basu & Elisa Keller, 2023. "Cross‐country disparities in skill premium and skill acquisition," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(1), pages 179-198, January.
    15. Growiec, Jakub & Groth, Christian, 2015. "On aggregating human capital across heterogeneous cohorts," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 21-38.
    16. Danish Ahmed SIDDIQUI & Qazi Masood AHMED, 2019. "Are institutions a crucial determinant of cross country economic efficiency? A two-stage double bootstrap data envelopment analysis," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(1(618), S), pages 89-114, Spring.
    17. Breinlich, Holger & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2014. "Regional Growth and Regional Decline," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 4, pages 683-779, Elsevier.
    18. Michael Knoblach & Fabian Stöckl, 2020. "What Determines The Elasticity Of Substitution Between Capital And Labor? A Literature Review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 847-875, September.
    19. Decreux, Yvan & Ramos, Maria Priscila, 2007. "How does tariff-rate quota modelling affect CGE results? An application for MIRAGE," Working Papers 7206, TRADEAG - Agricultural Trade Agreements.
    20. Jakub Growiec & Anna Pajor & Dorota Gorniak & Artur Predki, 2015. "The shape of aggregate production functions: evidence from estimates of the World Technology Frontier," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 46(4), pages 299-326.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:igi:igierp:321. 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: http://www.igier.unibocconi.it/ .

    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.