克鲁格曼国际经济学第八版上册课后答案4.doc

Chapter 4Resources, Comparative Advantage,and Income DistributionnChapter OrganizationA Model of a Two-Factor EconomyPrices and ProductionChoosing the Mix of InputsFactor Prices and Goods PricesResources and OutputEffects of International Trade Between Two-Factor EconomiesRelative Prices and the Pattern of TradeTrade and the Distribution of IncomeFactor Price EqualizationTrade and Income Distribution in the Short RunCase Study: North-South Trade and Income InequalityThe Political Economy of Trade: A Preliminary ViewThe Gains from Trade, RevisitedOptimal Trade PolicyIncome Distribution and Trade PoliticsBox: Income Distribution and the Beginnings of Trade TheoryEmpirical Evidence on the Heckscher-Ohlin ModelTesting the Heckscher-Ohlin Model Implications of the TestsSummaryAppendix: Factor Prices, Goods Prices, and Input ChoicesChoice of TechniqueGoods Prices and Factor PricesnChapter OverviewIn Chapter 3, trade between nations was motivated by differences internationally in the relative productivity of workers when producing a range of products. In Chapter 4, this analysis goes a step further by introducing the Heckscher-Ohlin theory.The Heckscher-Ohlin theory considers the pattern of production and trade which will arise when countries have different endowments of factors of production, such as labor, capital, and land. The basic point is that countries tend to export goods that are intensive in the factors with which they are abundantly supplied. Trade has strong effects on the relative earnings of resources, and tends to lead to equalization across countries of prices of the factors of production. These theoretical results and related empirical findings are presented in this chapter.The chapter begins by developing a general equilibrium model of an economy with two goods which are each produced using two factors according to fixed coefficient production functions. The assumption of fixed coefficient production functions provides an unambiguous ranking of goods in terms of factor intensities. (The appendix develops the model when the production functions have variable coefficients.) Two important results are derived using this model. The first is known as the Rybczynski effect. Increasing the relative supply of one factor, holding relative goods prices constant, leads to a biased expansion of production possibilities favoring the relative supply of the good which uses that factor intensively.The second key result is known as the Stolper-Samuelson effect. Increasing the relative price of a good, holding factor supplies constant, increases the return to the factor used intensively in the production of that good by more than the price increase, while lowering the return to the other factor. This result has important income distribution implications.It can be quite instructive to think of the effects of demographic/labor force changes on the supply of different products. For example, how might the pattern of production during the productive years of the “Baby Boom” generation differ from the pattern of production for post Baby Boom generations? What does this imply for returns to factors and relative price behavior?The central message concerning trade patterns of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory is that countries tend to export goods whose production is intensive in factors with which they are relatively abundantly endowed. This is demonstrated by showing that, using the relative supply and relative demand analysis, the country relatively abundantly endowed with a certain factor will produce that factor more cheaply than the other country. International trade leads to a convergence of goods prices. Thus, the results from the Stolper-Samuelson effect demonstrate that owners of a countrys abundant factors gain from trade, but owners of a countrys scarce factors lose. The extension of this result is the important Factor Price Equalization Theorem, which states that trade in (and thus price equalization of) goods leads to an equalization in the rewards to factors across countries. The political implications of factor price equalization should be interesting to students.The chapter also introduces some political economy considerations. First, it briefly notes that many of the results regarding trade and income distribution assume full and swift adjustment in the economy. In the short run, though, labor and capital that are currently in a particular industry may have sector-specific skills or knowledge and are being forced to move to another sector, and this involves costs. Thus, even if a shift in relative prices were to improve the lot of labor, for those laborers who must change jobs, there is a short run cost.The core of the political economy discussion focuses on the fact that when opening to trade, some may benefit and some may lose, but the expansion of economic opportunity should allow society to redistribute some of the gains towards those who lose, making sure everyone benefits on net. In practice, though, those who lose are often more concentrated and hence have more incentive to try to affect policy. Thus, trade policy is not always welfare maximizing, but may simply reflect the preferences of the loudest and best organized in society.Empirical results concerning the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, beginning with the Leontief paradox and extending to current research, do not support its predictions concerning resource endowments explaining overall patterns of trade, though some patterns do match the broad outlines of its theory (e.g., the United States imports more low-skill products from Bangladesh and more high-skill products from Germany). This observation has motivated many economists to consider motives for trade between nations that are not exclusively based on differences across countries. These concepts will be explored in later chapters. Despite these shortcomings, important and relevant results concerning income distribution are obtained from the Heckscher-Ohlin theory.nAnswers to Textbook Problems1.The definition of cattle growing as land intensive depends on the ratio of land to labor used in production, not on the ratio of land or labor to output. The ratio of land to labor in cattle exceeds the ratio in wheat in the United States, implying cattle is land intensive in the United States. Cattle is land intensive in other countries as well if the ratio of land to labor in cattle production exceeds the ratio in wheat production in that country. Comparisons between another country and the United States is less relevant for this purpose. 2.a.The box diagram has 600 as the length of two sides (representing labor) and 60 as the length of the other two sides (representing land). There will be a ray from each of the two corners representing the origins. To find the slopes of these rays we use the information from the question concerning the ratios of the production coefficients. The question states that aLC/aTC = 20 and aLF/aTF = 5.Since aLC/aTC = (LC/QC)/(TC/QC) = LC/TC we have LC = 20TC. Using the same reasoning, aLF/aTF = (LF/QF)/(TF/QF) = LF/TF and since this ratio equals 5, we have LF = 5TF. We can solve this algebraically since L = LC + LF = 600 and T = TC + TF = 60.The solution is LC = 400, TC = 20, LF = 200 and TF = 40.b.The dimensions of the box change with each increase in available labor, but the slopes of the rays from the origins remain the same. The solutions in the different cases are as follows.L = 800:TC = 33.33,LC = 666.67,TF = 26.67,LF = 133.33L = 1000:TC = 46.67,LC = 933.33,TF = 13.33,LF = 66.67L = 1200:TC = 60,LC = 1200,TF = 0,LF = 0. (complete specialization).c.At constant factor prices, some labor would be unused, so factor prices would have to change, or there would be unemployment.3.This question is similar to an issue discussed in Chapter 3. What matters is not the absolute abundance of factors, but their relative abundance. Poor countries have an abundance of labor relative to capital when compared to more developed countries. 4.In the Ricardian model, labor gains from trade through an increase in its purchasing power. This result does not support labor union demands for limits on imports from less affluent countries. The Heckscher-Ohlin model directly addresses distribution by considering the effects of trade on the owners of factors of production. In the context of this model, unskilled U.S. labor loses from trade since this group represents the relatively scarce factors in this country. The results from the Heckscher-Ohlin model support labor union demands for import limits. In the short run, certain unskilled unions may gain or lose from trade depending on in which sector they work, but in theory, in the longer run, the conclusions of the Heckscher-Ohlin model will dominate.5.Specific programmers may face wage cuts due to the competition from India, but this is not inconsistent with skilled labor wages rising. By making programming more efficient in general, this development may have increased wages for others in the software industry or lowered the prices of the goods overall. In the short run, though, it has clearly hurt those with sector specific skills who will face transition costs. There are many reasons to not block the imports of computer programming services (or outsourcing of these jobs). First, by allowing programming to be done more cheaply, it expands the production possibilities frontier of the U.S., making the entire country better off on average. Necessary redistribution can be done, but we should not stop trade which is making the nation as a whole better off. In addition, no one trade policy action exists in a vacuum, and if the U.S. blocked the programming imports, it could lead to broader trade restrictions in other countries. 6.The factor proportions theory states that countries export those goods whose production is intensive in factors with which they are abundantly endowed. One would expect the United States, which has a high capital/labor ratio relative to the rest of the world, to export capital-intensive goods if the Heckscher-Ohlin theory holds. Leontief found that the United States exported labor-intensive goods. Bowen, Leamer and Sveikauskas found for the world as a whole the correlation between factor endowment and trade patterns to be tenuous. The data do not support the predictions of the theory that countries exports and imports reflect the relative endowments of factors.7.If the efficiency of the factors of production differs internationally, the lessons of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory would be applied to “effective factors” which adjust for the differences in technology or worker skills or land quality (for example). The adjusted model has been found to be more successful than the unadjusted model at explaining the pattern of trade between countries. Factor-price equalization concepts would apply to the effective factors. A worker with more skills or in a country with better technology could be considered to be equal to two workers in another country. Thus, the single person would be two effective units of labor. Thus, the one high-skilled worker could earn twice what lower-skilled workers do, and the price of one effective unit of labor would still be equalized.