POLI 211 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: International Political Economy, Factor Endowment, Dependent And Independent Variables
17 May 2018
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Alt and Gilligan- The political economy of international trade
I. Factor Specificity, Interest Groups, and the Politics of International Trade
Factor specificity: The ease with which factors can move among sectors of the economy, or the
costliness with which factors move from their current use to an alternative one.
Traditionally, two models have been used to ground the study of trade policy, and we introduce
a third:
Heckscher-Ohlin model: factor specificity is low, assumed that all factors can move costlessly
among industries. Owners of abundant factors will favor free trade, owners of scarce factors
will be protectionist, and empirically we would expect trade policy coalitions to form along
factor or class lines.
Ricardo-Viner model: factor specificity is very high, some factors cannot move at all among
industries. Trace policy coalitions form along the lines of exporting versus import-competing
industries or sectors. This model is often implicit in endogenous tariff literature.
Increasing Returns to Scale: Neither model above predicts the increasing importance--indeed
now the vast majority of world trade--of intruindustry trade between regions of similar factor
endowments, that is north-north rather than north-south trade. It does not necessary have
stark distribution implications. Because the adjustments called for by intraindustry trade take
place within (rather than across) sectors, there is at least the theoretical possibility that
everyong can gain from such trade. But they also show how both workers and owners can be
threatened by a 'tipping' of regional advantage that moves a whole sector from one location to
another.
Interaction of Political and Economic Factors
Alt and Gilligan (1994) argue that we cannot get from the specification of pregerences offered
in these three mdoels directly to coalition formation. Simply having a particular set of
preferences will not motivate people to take political action. They go on to argue that two
variables - collective action costs and political institutions -- are interactive with factor
specificity. The kinds of politics described most often in the endogenous tariff literature: (a)
factors must be specific, (b) collective action costs must be high and (c) institutions must be less
majoritatrian). If one of these is missing, a different set of coalitions will form.
In short, to get the two 'ideal' types of trade policy coalitions associated with the HO and RV
models, researchers must really make assumptions not only about factor specificity but also
about collection action costs and policy-making institutions. Further, because these 3 variables
are interactive, altering assumptions about each of them, one by one, yields different outcomes
for trade policy coalitions, including no coalitions at all, and some unstable coalitions. Also,
well-established coalitions of groups are likely to survive simply because new ties are costly.
Treating Specificity as a Matter of Degree
Once the extreme assumptions of both endowments-based mdoels are eased, their predictions
about coalitions are no longer clear cut.
Many remaining Challenges
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Each of the models has significant weak spots and many puzzles remain unsolved.
III. Factor Specificity and 'Gains From Trade' Within Industrial Organization
This section develops the measurements and use of factor specificity as an explanatory
variable. A crucial determinant of the incentives for an economic agent to seek trade protection
of subsidies for her economic activity is the degree to which the agent's assets as specific to this
activity. More cross-fertilization is possible between factor specificity in the trade-theoretical
sense and asset-specificity in the new institutional economics sense, in the following areas:
The Organization of Political Activity
Long-lasing or institutionalized political aggregations are more likely where the actors hold
political or economic assets specific to their current use. Unskilled laborers will be less likely to
join together politically than will skilled workers. This shoud be true for primordial interest
groups, parties, or movements.
Public Policy as Contract
Policies that address broad groups vs more limited groups, voting vs. lobbying.
Interdependence of Political Constitutions and Economic Structure
An economy characterized by a high level of asset specificity is likely to be th eproduct of a
politicial system that allows firms to protect specific assets by forming durable relationships
with political representatives, depending on political institutions.
Preference Intensity and Asset Specificity
One major goal of IPE should be to come up a theoretical and empirical analysis incorporating
variation in asset specificity.
Measurement
Measurement of asset specificity has to take into account a variety of levels of agreggation and
sources of specificity. We can think of 4 types of specificity: site, physical, human, dedicated.
There are also 4 approaches to measurement: rate-of-return, lobbying, expert survey, and
indirect.
IV: Future Research: The Dependent Variable
Major questions include:
Why do we observe trade restrictions in the first place? The typical strategy in answering this
question and building a model of political economy of trade policy is: (a) to lay out the
implications of different trade policies on the incomes of sectoral groups or of broad factor
owners, and (b) to deduce the policy outcomes from the organizational strength of these actors
and the nature of prevailing political institutions.
Where this model falls short is that they demonstrate only how trade policy can play a
redistributive role, not why it should do so. We are left with the question: If the beneficiaries of
trade restrictions are indeed powerful enough to redistribute income to themselves, then why
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Document Summary
Alt and gilligan- the political economy of international trade: factor specificity, interest groups, and the politics of international trade. Factor specificity: the ease with which factors can move among sectors of the economy, or the costliness with which factors move from their current use to an alternative one. Traditionally, two models have been used to ground the study of trade policy, and we introduce a third: Heckscher-ohlin model: factor specificity is low, assumed that all factors can move costlessly among industries. Owners of abundant factors will favor free trade, owners of scarce factors will be protectionist, and empirically we would expect trade policy coalitions to form along factor or class lines. Ricardo-viner model: factor specificity is very high, some factors cannot move at all among industries. Trace policy coalitions form along the lines of exporting versus import-competing industries or sectors. This model is often implicit in endogenous tariff literature.
