The development and testing of Heckscher-Ohlin trade models

by Robert E. Baldwin

"Baldwin, who published his first theoretical article on the HO model in 1948, first surveys the development of the HO model and then assesses empirical tests of its basic proposition. Most discussions of empirical work on HO models confine themselves to the basic theorem, but Baldwin devotes a chapter to empirical tests of its three related propositions: the Stolper-Samuelson theorem, the Rybczynski theorem, and the factor price equalization theorem. He concludes that economists' understanding of the forces shaping international trade has been greatly improved through the interactive process of empirical testing and theoretical modification, but that many empirical economists (himself included) were so enamored of the elegant but highly unrealistic factor price equalization models developed from the insights of Heckscher and Ohlin that they have neglected investigation of other versions of the basic HO model without this relationship."--Jacket.