IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/van/wpaper/0205.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Explaining United States International Trade, 1870-1910

Author

Listed:
  • William K. Hutchinson

    (Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University)

Abstract

Wright (1990) presents evidence on the factor content of trade that indicates the United States tended to export goods that were raw materials intensive. Using factor per unit of output ratios derived from the United States Census of Manu-factures, we are able to supplement Wright's findings for the period 1870 to 1910, a period in which his results were not as conclusive as were his results for later periods. In addition to the female and child labor content of trade during this pe-riod, the Census data also allow us to examine a measure of the human capital con-tent of trade during the period 1870 to 1910. Net exports tended to be capital in-tensive relative to labor and materials. However, a complementary relationship existed between capital and materials relative to labor which resulted in a positive relationship between labor value per unit of output and net exports.

Suggested Citation

  • William K. Hutchinson, 2002. "Explaining United States International Trade, 1870-1910," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0205, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:van:wpaper:0205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/VUECON/vu02-w05.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2002
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert A. Margo, 2000. "Wages and Labor Markets in the United States, 1820-1860," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number marg00-1, March.
    2. Leamer, Edward E, 1980. "The Leontief Paradox, Reconsidered," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(3), pages 495-503, June.
    3. Crafts, N F R & Thomas, Mark, 1986. "Comparative Advantage in UK Manufacturing Trade, 1910-1935," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 96(383), pages 629-645, September.
    4. Leamer, Edward E & Bowen, Harry P, 1981. "Cross-Section Tests of the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem: Comment [Factor Abundance and Comparative Advantage]," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 1040-1043, December.
    5. Goldin, Claudia, 2001. "The Human-Capital Century And American Leadership: Virtues Of The Past," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 61(2), pages 263-292, June.
    6. Robert E. Lipsey, 1963. "Price and Quantity Trends in the Foreign Trade of the United States," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number lips63-1, March.
    7. Markusen, James R. & Melvin, James R. & Maskus, Keith E. & Kaempfer, William, 1995. "International trade: theory and evidence," MPRA Paper 21989, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Eichengreen, Barry & Irwin, Douglas A., 1995. "Trade blocs, currency blocs and the reorientation of world trade in the 1930s," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1-2), pages 1-24, February.
    9. Harry P. Bowen & Leo Sveikauskas, 1992. "Judging Factor Abundance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 599-620.
    10. Robert E. Lipsey, 1963. "Introduction to "Price and Quantity Trends in the Foreign Trade of the United States"," NBER Chapters, in: Price and Quantity Trends in the Foreign Trade of the United States, pages 3-7, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Trefler, Daniel, 1995. "The Case of the Missing Trade and Other Mysteries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1029-1046, December.
    12. Robert A. Margo, 2000. "Introduction to "Wages and Labor Markets in the United States, 1820-1860"," NBER Chapters, in: Wages and Labor Markets in the United States, 1820-1860, pages 1-5, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Wright, Gavin, 1990. "The Origins of American Industrial Success, 1879-1940," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(4), pages 651-668, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/670 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Cörvers F. & Reininga T., 1998. "The Dutch Factor Content of Human and Physical Capital: A Test of the HOV Model," ROA Research Memorandum 001, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    3. Flandreau, Marc & Accominotti, Olivier, 2005. "Does Bilateralism Promote Trade? Nineteenth Century Liberalization Revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 5423, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Beatriz Muriel & Cristina Terra, 2009. "Sources of Comparative Advantages in Brazil," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 15-27, February.
    5. Charles W. Calomiris & Christopher Hanes, 1994. "Historical Macroeconomics and American Macroeconomic History," NBER Working Papers 4935, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Martino Pelli & Jeanne Tschopp, 2014. "Hurricanes Revisited : Comparative Advantage as a Source of Heterogeneity," Cahiers de recherche 14-09, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    7. Corvers, Frank & de Grip, Andries, 1997. "Explaining trade in industrialized countries by country-specific human capital endowments," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 395-416, July.
    8. Pavel Ciaian & d'Artis Kancs & Jan Pokrivcak, 2008. "Comparative Advantages, Transaction Costs and Factor Content of Agricultural Trade: Empirical Evidence from the CEE," EERI Research Paper Series EERI_RP_2008_03, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.
    9. Marcel Kohler, 2008. "The impact of international trade on changing patterns of energy use in South African industry," Working Papers 088, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    10. Salisbury, Laura, 2014. "Selective migration, wages, and occupational mobility in nineteenth century America," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 40-63.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Margo, Robert A., 2016. "Obama, Katrina, and the Persistence of Racial Inequality," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(2), pages 301-341, June.
    14. Antonio Tena Junguito, 1992. "Las estadísticas históricas del comercio internacional: fiabilidad y comparabilidad," Estudios de Historia Económica, Banco de España, number 24, November.
    15. Elhanan Helpman, 1999. "The Structure of Foreign Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 121-144, Spring.
    16. 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.
    17. Kevin H. O'Rourke & Jeffrey G. Williamson & T. J. Hatton, 1993. "Mass migration, commodity market integration and real wage convergence : the late nineteenth century Atlantic economy," Working Papers 199325, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    18. Brakman, Steven & van Marrewijk, Charles, 2013. "Lumpy countries, urbanization, and trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 252-261.
    19. Thijs ten Raa & Pierre Mohnen, 2009. "The Location of Comparative Advantages on the Basis of Fundamentals Only," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Input–Output Economics: Theory And Applications Featuring Asian Economies, chapter 23, pages 425-446, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    20. David Autor & Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2020. "Extending the Race between Education and Technology," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 110, pages 347-351, May.
    21. Brian D. Varian, 2020. "The manufacturing comparative advantages of late-Victorian Britain," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(3), pages 479-506, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    International trade; factor content; factor intensity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • N71 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

    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:van:wpaper:0205. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/index.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.