Development accounting exercises based on an aggregate production function find technology is biased in favor of a country’s abundant production factors. We provide an explanation for this finding based on the Heckscher-Ohlin model. Countries trade and specialize in the industries that use intensively the production factors they are abundantly endowed with. For given factor endowment ratios, this implies smaller international differences in factor price ratios than under autarky. Thus, when measuring the factor bias of technology with the same aggregate production function for all countries, they appear to have an abundant-factor bias in their technologies.
Specialization Patterns and the Factor Bias of Technology
MAFFEZZOLI, MARCO
2007
Abstract
Development accounting exercises based on an aggregate production function find technology is biased in favor of a country’s abundant production factors. We provide an explanation for this finding based on the Heckscher-Ohlin model. Countries trade and specialize in the industries that use intensively the production factors they are abundantly endowed with. For given factor endowment ratios, this implies smaller international differences in factor price ratios than under autarky. Thus, when measuring the factor bias of technology with the same aggregate production function for all countries, they appear to have an abundant-factor bias in their technologies.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.