Question

1. The Heckscher Ohlin model Home and Foreign have twoproduction factors, skilled and unskilled labor and produce twogoods, textiles and computers. Home is skilled labor abundant,and computers are skilled labor intensive. Starting from asituation of autarky, the two countries liberalize trade. Assumingthat the two countries produce both goods before and after tradeliberalization, answer the following questions:

1. (a) What is the effect of trade liberalization on the relativeprice of com- puters at Home and in Foreign?

2. (b) What is the effect of trade liberalization on the output ofcomputers and textiles at Home and in Foreign?

3. (c) What is the effect of trade liberalization on aggregatewelfare in the two countries?

4. (d) What is the effect of trade liberalization on the realfactor returns in Home and Foreign? Please provide a graphicalexplanation for your argument. What is the name of this famousresult?

2. The Heckscher-Ohlin model Recently, computer programmers indevel- oping countries like India have begun doing some workformerly done in the United States. This shift has undoubtedly ledto substantial pay cuts for some programmers in the United States.Answer the following two questions:

1. (a) How is it possible, when the wages of skilled labor arerising in the United States as a whole?

2. (b) What argument would trade economists make against seeingthese wage cuts as a reason to block outsourcing of computerprogramming?

3. The Heckscher-Ohlin model This question asks you to reviewsome of the empirical tests of the Heckscher-Ohlin model.

(a) Explain how the Leontief Paradox and the more recent resultsby Bowen, Leamer and Sweikauskas discussed in class and in thetextbook contradict the predictions of the Heckscher Ohlinmodel.

(b) In the discussion of empirical results on the HeckscherOhlin model, we noted that recent work suggests that the efficiencyof production factors differ across countries. Explain how thiswould affect the concept of factor price equalization.