Factor Proportions and the Structure of Commodity Trade
John Romalis∗- Chicago GSB, August 2003
Abstract This paper derives and empirically examines how factor proportions de- termine the structure of commodity trade. It integrates a many-country ver- sion of the Heckscher-Ohlin model with a continuum of goods developed by Dornbusch-Fischer-Samuelson (1980) with the Krugman (1980) model of mo- nopolistic competition and transport costs. The commodity structure of pro- duction and bilateral trade is fully determined. Two main predictions emerge. There is a quasi-Heckscher-Ohlin prediction. Countries capture larger shares
- f world production and trade of commodities that more intensively use their
abundant factors. There is a quasi-Rybczynski effect. Countries that rapidly accumulate a factor see their production and export structures systematically move towards industries that intensively use that factor. Both predictions re- ceive support from the data. Factor proportions appear to be an important determinant of the structure of international trade.
∗I would particularly like to thank my advisors, Daron Acemoglu, Rudi Dornbusch, and Jaume
- Ventura. Thanks are also due to Kristin Forbes, Roberto Rigobon, Alan Woodland, two anony-
mous referees and participants at seminars at MIT, Chicago GSB, Stanford, UCLA, ANU, Chicago Economics Department, Columbia Business School, Harvard, Michigan, MIT Sloan School, NBER Summer ITI Workshop, Princeton, UBC, UT Austin, Wisconsin and Yale for helpful comments and
- suggestions. All errors are my own.