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It follows from Heckscher Ohlin's theory that. Heckscher-Olin production factor ratio theory. Porter's Theory of Competitive Advantage

The assertion that a country exports goods for which its relatively abundant factor of production is intensively used, and imports goods for the production of which it experiences a relative shortage of factors of production.

Existence conditions:

firstly, the countries participating in international exchange tend to export those goods and services for the manufacture of which they use mainly production factors that are in excess, and, conversely, to import those products for which there is a shortage of any factors;
second, development international trade leads to the equalization of "factorial" prices, i.e., the income received by the owner of this factor;
thirdly, it is possible, given sufficient international mobility of factors of production, to replace the export of goods by the movement of the factors themselves between countries.

Heckscher-Ohlin's theory of proportionality of factors of production- HECKSCHER OHLIN FACTOR PROPORTIONS THEORY A theory that explains the relationship between uneven distribution of resources between countries and their comparative advantage in international trade. Consider a situation where there are two... Dictionary-reference book on economics

Heckscher-Ohlin's theory of factors of production- according to it, each country tends to specialize in the production of goods that require more factors with which the country is relatively better endowed ... Economics: glossary

FACTORS OF PRODUCTION THEORY- in relation to the international division of labor and international trade, a modern modification of the theory of comparative costs by D. Ricardo. A significant contribution to its development was made by the Swedish economists E. Heckscher and B. Ohlin, who in their works, ... ... Foreign economic explanatory dictionary

International trade is a system of international commodity-money relations, consisting of foreign trade all countries of the world. International trade arose in the process of the birth of the world market in the 16th and 18th centuries. Its development is one of ... ... Wikipedia

International trade- (Foreign trade) Contents Contents Definition Advantages of participating in Modern theories of international trade Mercantilism Theory of absolute advantages The theory of comparative advantages of David Ricardo Heckscher Olin's theory Leontief's paradox ... ... Encyclopedia of the investor

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The theory of D. Ricardo followed from the differences in the costs of production of certain goods in different countries that actually existed at that time, depending overwhelmingly on differences in natural conditions. At the end of the XIX century. - early XX century. there have been structural shifts in international trade. In 1928, industrial products accounted for about 40% of world exports, while raw materials and semi-finished products - 35%, and food - 25%. This indicates that the role of natural differences as a factor in the international division of labor has significantly decreased. The same can be said about differences in labor productivity, since trade between countries with approximately the same level of development (the United States and European countries) was quite active.

At this time, the Swedish economists Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin put forward a theory, according to which they tried to explain the causes of international trade in manufactured goods.

The main provisions of the new theory were formulated by E. Heckscher in a short newspaper article published in 1919 in Swedish. In the 1920s and 1930s, these provisions were generalized and developed by his student, B. Olin.

In accordance with their theory, countries export those goods in the production of which the excess factor is most used. There are three main factors: labor, capital and land. However, the Heckscher-Ohlin theory is two-factor, since it compares only two of the three factors, such as labor and capital. Thus, some goods are labor-intensive, while others are capital-intensive. It can be logically assumed that different countries are endowed with labor and capital to varying degrees. Consequently, in a country where labor resources are plentiful and capital is scarce, labor will be comparatively cheap and capital expensive. In any other country where labor is scarce and capital is plentiful, labor will be expensive and capital cheap. Each of these countries will export those goods that are comparatively cheaper to produce, using the "cheap factor of production" to a greater extent.

Theory of the international competitiveness of the nation

The theory was developed by the American researcher M. Porter. He came to the conclusion that the place of each country and its specific producers in the world market is determined by four main conditions: the quantity and quality of various factors of production, demand in the domestic market, the presence of related and service industries, the company's strategy and internal competition. .

Porter considered the presence of factors of production to be decisive in providing comparative advantages. He did not limit himself to factors bestowed by nature or passed on from previous generations, but considered it necessary to gradually improve and develop these factors in the process of expanded reproduction. This explains the accelerated development of Japan's industry, based on material-saving and energy-saving technologies, brought to life by the limited resources of the country.

1. technologies and their products, the birth of which is due to the internal conditions of the country, which have become widespread throughout the world, and their manufacturers have become the largest suppliers of their products on the world market.

2. The presence of related and service industries is an important additional incentive to improve products.

3. The firm's strategy and the presence of competition in the domestic market force firms to constantly improve their production and look for new buyers. Any company is focused on gaining a strong position in the market, so it must constantly look for new ways to reduce production costs and improve products.

Leontief's paradox

Everything that we know today about the factors that shape the exports and imports of the leading countries is the result of research, which was stimulated by an unexpected result obtained in the 1950s by Wassily Leontiev and launched a whole series of fruitful discussions. Leontiev, later awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, relied on the surest of the instincts in science: to always check whether theoretical conclusions correspond to reality.

This time he decided to test the conclusion of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory that countries tend to export goods in the production of which they intensively use factors that are redundant for them, and import goods in the production of which these factors are used less intensively. More precisely, he wanted to simultaneously test two assumptions: 1) the Heckscher-Ohlin theory is correct, 2) the US economy, as it was widely believed, had capital to a greater extent than its trading partners.

Leontiev obtained the ratio of the value of fixed capital and the number of workers in the export and import-substituting industries of the United States in 1947. This required calculations of capital and employment not only in several dozen of the industries under consideration, but also taking into account the capital and labor that were contained in their goods as a result of the use of products of other industries. Being one of the pioneers of input-output balance, he successfully used its opportunities to obtain required assessments capital-labor ratio by multiplying the matrix of coefficients by the vectors of capital and labor costs, the cost of exports and imports by industry. The test conditions were as follows: if the conclusions of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory are correct, and capital in the United States is relatively more abundant, then (taking into account the contribution of all industries) the indicator of capital expenditure per worker (Kx / Lx) in a standard set of goods exported from the United States , should be higher than the similar indicator (Km/Lm) in import-substituting products included in the standard set of goods imported into the United States.

The paradoxical results obtained by Leontiev puzzled not only himself, but also other economists: it turned out that in 1947 the United States was selling labor-intensive goods to other countries in exchange for relatively capital-intensive ones! Key parameter(Kx/Lx)/(Km/Lm) was only 0.77, whereas, according to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, it should have been much higher than unity.

Leontiev himself and other economists approached this problem in different ways. The method has been repeatedly tested and found to be basically correct. There was no doubt about the excess of capital in the US compared to other countries. Theoretically, the paradox could be explained by the fact that the share of capital-intensive products in the structure of US demand was even higher than in production, which turned the country into a net importer of capital-intensive goods; however, this explanation was not suitable, since it did not correspond to reality. Other economists have tried to look for the cause in trade barriers or in the so-called "factor intensity reversibility" (where industry A is more capital-intensive than industry B under one ratio of factor prices, and less capital-intensive under another), but even this contributed little to the solution. Problems.

The most fruitful was the decision to introduce other factors of production into the model. Perhaps, many economists (and Leontiev among them) reasoned, one should take into account the fact that there are different kinds labor, natural resources, capital, etc. Numerous studies in this direction have led to two main results: 1) confirmed the existence of a "paradox" throughout most of the post-war period; 2) significantly improved our understanding of the availability of factors and the intensity of their use. The first refuted the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, the second supported it.

Despite differences in calculation techniques, all studies have largely confirmed the existence of the Leontief paradox in the United States between World War II and the early 1970s.

At the same time, in an attempt to unravel the Leontief paradox, scientists began to introduce into the model other factors of production, in addition to capital and labor. New calculations of "factor intensity" have enriched, as already mentioned, our understanding of who wins and who loses as a result of foreign trade. In a sense, this by-product of the Leontief Paradox controversy compensated for the damage it had done to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory. Of course, the US had some capital surplus and somehow exported less services of this factor than it imported. But research, stimulated by Leontief's work, has shown that capital is by no means the most abundant factor of production in the United States. The first place here belongs to cultivated land and scientific and technical personnel. Indeed, the United States is a net exporter of goods that make intensive use of these factors, in full accordance with the Heckscher-Ohlin theory. Thus, despite some damage done to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory by the Leontief paradox, it was eventually enriched by new results obtained in the course of the study of this riddle.

62. Protectionism policy: essence, causes, consequences.

Protectionism is the foreign trade policy of the state aimed at temporarily restricting the import of imported goods and supporting the production of homogeneous domestic goods and services in order to increase gross national income, increase employment and improve social indicators.

To achieve the general goals of economic policy, protectionism uses a set of restrictive measures:

Customs duties

Import quotas and trade embargo

Certification system for the safety of goods and services

Intellectual property protection, patents and copyright

Administrative barriers: bureaucratic prohibitions, approvals, customs procedures

Voluntary export restrictions

Technical barriers: mandatory information on packaging, labeling, product standardization, sanitary and veterinary forms

Subsidies for producers involved in the export of goods and services: concessional lending, compensation for a number of expenses, preferential taxation

Subsidies for manufacturers producing goods and services for the domestic market

Providing grants and other forms of incentives for exporters

Currency control: restrictions on exchange transactions, capital transfer control

Provision of concessional loans and credits to local producers

Discrimination against foreign workers and investors

Subsidies for consumers buying goods and services from local producers

Intervention in the exchange rate: the depreciation of the national currency

Conducting political patriotic campaigns in the form of "buy only domestic"

Preferences for local goods and services in commercial tenders

Government spending supporting local producers and government procurement only from domestic producers.

The protectionist policy allows you to get much more benefits compared to the costs of maintaining and maintaining restrictive measures:

Support for an emerging industry or product at an early stage life cycle goods, obtaining a respite in the period of modernization of the industry

Ensuring National Security: Maintaining Industries Related to National Defense ( Military-industrial complex)

Security economic security countries in the form of self-sufficiency of the country's economy and its sustainability

Diversification of production for the sake of stability, strengthening the political and economic independence of the country

Increasing and protecting the level of employment of the population of the country, protection from cheaper foreign labor

Dumping protection: from countries that dump goods in a foreign country below cost in order to destroy a competitor or establish a monopoly position

Improvements in the balance of payments, reduction of the foreign trade deficit due to the reduction in the volume of imports

Increasing the number of sales of domestic goods and services

Replenishment of the income of the state budget of the country at the expense of customs payments

Replenishment of local budget income in connection with the additional profit of local producers

Reduced losses from imperfect competition from the side foreign manufacturers

Ensuring the safety of life and health of citizens through the sale of products of controlled production by state bodies.

Critics of protectionism usually point out that customs duties increase the cost of imported goods within the country, which may affect consumers. In addition, an important argument against protectionism is the threat of monopolization: protection from external competition can help monopolists to establish complete control over the domestic market. An example is the rapid monopolization of industry in the United States, Germany and Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, which occurred in the context of their protectionist policies.

Some economists are trying to develop a neutral view of protectionism, free trade, considering their impact on the growth of national wealth through the analysis of gains and losses. In their opinion, the benefit from the application of export and import duties can be opposed to the production and consumer losses arising from the distortion of the motives of the behavior of both producers and consumers. However, it is also possible that the benefits from improving the terms of trade after the introduction of foreign trade taxes exceed the losses from it. The main prerequisite for improving the terms of trade from the introduction of duties is that the country has market power, that is, the ability of one or a group of sellers (buyers) in the country to influence export prices and / or import prices.

63. Non-tariff restrictions in international trade.

After World War II, tariffs in industrialized countries were significantly reduced and were in the early 80s. at the minimum level. Economic integration, especially in Western Europe, contributed to the liberalization of trade. However, there is currently an expansion of "selective" protectionist trade policy, especially in the form of quotas, voluntary export restrictions and other non-tariff barriers that discriminate against imported goods in favor of domestic ones. Such non-tariff barriers include various quality standards, sanitary restrictions, equipment environmental performance requirements, restrictions on the issuance of import licenses, administrative sales bans. certain types products in certain countries, etc. Of all types of non-tariff restrictions, import and export quotas are the most widely used.

The import tariff does not directly limit the quantity of imported goods - the importer can import any amount of products, provided that he pays customs duty. On the contrary, an import quota limits the volume of imports to a certain number of pieces, tons, pairs of shoes, etc., and sometimes also limits the value of imports allowed to enter the country annually. The state issues a limited number of licenses allowing the import of goods and prohibits unlicensed imports.

The mechanism of action of quotas is similar to an import tariff: domestic prices rise above world prices, the supply of imported goods is limited. However, quotas have two important differences from a tariff:

1) quotas absolutely neutralize any impact of foreign competition on domestic prices. If world prices are falling, then under a tariff, imports will gradually increase, while domestic prices will fall along with world prices. If there is a quota, imports cannot be increased. Therefore, the gap between domestic and world prices is growing, increasing import profits (including monopoly profits).

At the same time, more stringent regulation of the amount of imports with the help of a quota somewhat facilitates the process of short-term settlement of the balance of payments, and a relatively elastic import with a tariff complicates this process;

2) quotas that quantitatively limit imports completely isolate the domestic market from the penetration of new foreign goods - if the established quota is exhausted, then they cannot even be presented as a gift. Combined with the isolation of domestic prices from world prices, this provides absolute protection domestic market from foreign competition, which has a very contradictory effect on the economy.

Currently, quotas are used somewhat more frequently than tariffs, mainly for two reasons:

1) tariff rates governed by international trade agreements. With rare exceptions, governments cannot raise tariffs on their own and are forced to resort to stricter import quotas to protect import-competing industries;

2) industries in need of protection also prefer import quotas, since it is easier to achieve special licensing privileges than the introduction of a tariff, which is associated with a change in the structure of state budget revenues.

Import quotas are most attractive in conditions of free competition, in which the effects of quotas are similar to those of an import tariff.

The net welfare losses, as in the case of a tariff, are the "b" and udy areas, and the "c" area represents the markup on allowed imports and characterizes the transfer from consumers to the authorities in charge of import licenses.

The net welfare loss from a quota would be higher than from an import tariff in two cases:

1) if the quota provokes monopoly power domestic manufacturer or a foreign firm im porter products;

2) if import licenses are placed inefficiently.

Ways to place import licenses:

1) open auction: the state grants a license to the company that offered the highest price for it. Ceteris paribus, the auction is a cheaper and more efficient mechanism, but with corruption state power the owner of an import license is often the one who offered the highest bribe for it, which entails significant social costs;

2) a system of explicit preferences: without any preliminary applications and negotiations, the government grants import licenses to the most reputable firms, and in an amount corresponding to their share in the total import value on the eve of the introduction of quotas;

3) "cost method": the issuance of licenses to firms with more production capacity and other resources, which leads to their inefficient use in the form of excessive investment in unused equipment in the expectation of obtaining more licenses.

64. Foreign exchange market: basic concepts. nominal and real exchange rates.

The foreign exchange market is a sphere economic relations, manifested in the implementation of the transaction for the purchase and sale of foreign currency and securities in foreign currency, as well as operations for the investment of foreign exchange capital. Before entering the market, you need to know the meaning of the basic concepts of the foreign exchange market.

The foreign exchange market is an official financial center where the purchase and sale of currencies and securities in foreign currency is concentrated on the basis of supply and demand for them. From a functional point of view, foreign exchange markets ensure the timely implementation of international settlements, insurance against foreign exchange risks, diversification of foreign exchange reserves, foreign exchange intervention, profit making by their participants in the form of exchange rate differences. From an institutional point of view, foreign exchange markets are a set of authorized banks, investment companies, stock exchanges, brokerage houses, foreign banks engaged in foreign exchange transactions.

Basic concepts of the foreign exchange market

Currency transactions (speculation) are transactions for the exchange of one currency for another, which are concluded with the aim of making a profit as a result of favorable dynamics of exchange rates.

Everyone who has a stable income and has free funds, voluntarily or involuntarily, participates in the process of currency speculation. For example, the currency in which you decide to keep free funds depends on whether they will be multiplied, or whether you risk losing some of your savings.

Broker - legal or individual which performs intermediary functions between the seller and the buyer, between the insurer and the insured, between the shipowner and the charterer. Thus, transactions are usually concluded by brokers on behalf of, on behalf of, and at the expense of the client. They can also act on their own behalf, but at the expense of the principal on the basis of agreements concluded with clients. For transactions, the broker receives a brokerage fee either in the amount agreed with the client, or at the rate established by the exchange client.

Market makers are banks that take on exchange rate risk by holding a fixed amount of currency at all times in order to keep that currency trading even when the market is illiquid. Each market maker competes for customer orders by quoting buy and sell prices for a guaranteed amount of currency. If the market maker receives an order to buy a currency, he immediately sells the currency to the client from his assets or looks for a client with the opposite operation.

Transactions in the FOREX market are concluded on spot conditions, i.e. delivery of the entire amount of the base currency for all transactions that were concluded on the current business day must be carried out on the second business day. Margin trading is characterized by the absence of real delivery. In this case, in order to avoid delivery, it is necessary to make a deal of the swap type. This means that you need to close the position at the current rate on the previous value date, and then reopen it at the current rate, taking into account swap points, on the next value date.

The swap operation is a standard banking operation, which makes it possible to move the date of the actual delivery of the currency forward by a day.

Spread - the difference between the buying and selling rate.

A pip is the smallest possible price change.

A gap is a gap in quote charts.

The exchange rate is the price of the national currency expressed in foreign currency. The exchange rate, like any other price, in a free market is determined by the ratio of supply and demand. The nominal exchange rate is set either in the foreign exchange market or by fixing it by government agencies. It is used to carry out current transactions and for settlements on them. But if it is necessary to determine long-term trends, then the nominal exchange rate may be inconvenient, since the value of the currency, like any other commodity, changes with changes in prices in the country. Therefore, just as the prices of goods and other macroeconomic indicators are converted from current prices to constant prices for comparability, so the exchange rate can be converted to real measurement. Accounting for the level of inflation in both countries makes it possible to translate the nominal exchange rate into a real one. Therefore, the real exchange rate is the nominal rate recalculated taking into account changes in price levels in our country and abroad.

According to the principle of comparative advantage, trade is caused by differences in opportunity cost production of goods. Why are they not the same in different countries? There was no explicit answer to this question for a long time. In the early versions of the concept of comparative advantage, the most obvious answer was the assumption that the level of labor productivity was not the same as a result of differences in environmental conditions or in access to raw materials in different countries.

Significant progress in this regard was made by the Swedish economists Eli Heckscher (in an article published in 1919) and his student Bertil Ohlin (in a book published in 1933). They linked differences between countries in the opportunity costs of producing the same goods with unequal security (endowment) countries by factors of production and differences between goods by combination of factors required for the production of these goods - by their factor intensity(factor capacity).

Various countries unequally provided with factors of production - labor, land and capital. It should be emphasized that here we mean not absolute, but relative security. One of the countries may have more than the other, and labor resources, and land, and capital. But in this case, it will matter how much more of these resources are available in one of the countries compared to the other. If, for example, in the first country, compared to the second, there is 3 times more labor, and only 2 times more capital, then the first country will be labor-provided, and the second - capital-provided. The ratio of the prices of these production factors. Where labor is relatively surplus, wages will be lower; where capital is loan interest; where land is ground rent.

At the same time, the production of various goods requires an unequal combination of factors of production. Depending on which of the factors is most necessary (or, as they say, most intensively used) in the production of the corresponding product, labor-intensive, capital-intensive and land-intensive goods are distinguished.

It is natural to assume that the opportunity cost of producing labor-intensive goods will be lowest in countries where labor is a relatively abundant (and therefore cheap) factor. It is not difficult to repeat this statement for other categories of goods and factors.

AT general view the so-called Heckscher-Ohlin theorem can be formulated as follows: a country has a comparative advantage in those goods in the production of which heavily used relatively redundant in given country factor of production.

International trade in goods in the framework of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory appears as a kind of "implicit" movement of factors of production between countries. Although in reality intercountry mobility of factors is significantly limited, and in the case of land it is close to zero, trade to a certain extent compensates for this shortcoming. If, for example, a country with a labor supply, starting to trade, exports labor-intensive goods, then in a sense it also exports its relatively abundant factor - labor. That this is more than just a metaphor can be realized by analyzing the impact of trade on the incomes received by the owners of various factors of production.

After the start of trade in a country in which labor is an excess factor, for example, and which therefore exports labor-intensive goods, resources will begin to move from industries that produce capital and land-intensive goods to labor-intensive industries. This will mean a relative increase in the demand for labor and a fall in the demand for capital and land. (Because labor-intensive industries, by definition, require more labor than other factors.) Accordingly, wages will rise, while either the interest on capital or the ground-rent (or both) will fall relative to wages. The result is the same as if part of the labor force moved to other countries, thereby reducing the supply of labor, which would lead to an increase in wages. In those countries that import labor-intensive goods, there will be a reduction in the production of goods competing with imports, a fall in the demand for labor, a reduction in wages relative to interest on capital or land rent. The result will be the same as if there was an influx of labor into these countries, which would increase the supply of labor and cause wages to fall.

In general, it can be said that as a result of trade, the incomes of the owners of those factors that are intensively used in the production of goods in which the country has a comparative advantage increase.

Thus, the Heckscher-Ohlin theory has made a significant contribution to explaining the causes of inter-country differences in opportunity costs, and, thereby, to explaining the structure of international trade. It also made it possible to formulate a number of provisions regarding the impact of international trade on the distribution of income among the owners of various factors of production.

Despite the apparent obviousness of the main provisions and conclusions of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, an attempt to test it empirically was not carried out immediately. This can be partly explained by the fact that at the time of the emergence of this theory, there were still no data needed to classify industries according to their factor intensity. Such an opportunity appeared shortly after the Second World War, when the American economist of Russian origin Wassily Leontiev essentially completed the development of a method for analyzing the structure of the economy, called "input-output" (in the Soviet tradition - input-output balance). Within the framework of this method and the empirical estimates of the structure of costs for the production of goods in various sectors of the American economy, carried out on its basis, it turned out to be possible to carry out the first empirical verification of the correctness of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory. V.Leontiev, having data on the sectoral structure of US exports and imports, as well as on the volume of labor and capital in each of the industries, calculated the factor intensity of American exports and American production competing with imports1. Since the US was considered a country in which capital is a relatively surplus factor, the capital intensity of US exports was expected to be higher than the capital intensity of US production competing with imports. The result, however, was unexpected: import-substituting production turned out to be 30% more capital-intensive than exports. This phenomenon is called "Leontief's paradox". Subsequently, many attempts have been made to explain this paradox, as well as to repeat Leontiev's study, refining the methodology used and using more extensive and reliable empirical data.

As regards attempts to explain Leontiev's result, the main clarifications concerned two circumstances.

First. The industries in the study were classified by factor intensity, depending on the ratio of applied in them capital and labor. Degree of use natural resources(soil, minerals, forests, etc.) was not taken into account. Therefore, many industries that actually should have been classified as resource-intensive (in the sense that natural resources were the most intensively used factor in them) were most often classified as capital-intensive: after all, such industries also used a large number of capital. Although by no means capital was the most significant of the factors used in these industries. Since the United States was a country dependent on imports of many natural resources, and the resource-intensive industries that competed with imports were defined as capital-intensive, as a result, the level of capital intensity of industries that competed with imports turned out to be significantly overestimated in Leontiev's study.

Second. At that time in economics it has not yet become customary to distinguish between physical capital (machinery, equipment, buildings, etc.) and human capital (accumulated knowledge, skills and abilities that require special, sometimes lengthy training). At the same time, very many export-oriented industries in the United States were actually knowledge-intensive, i.e. those in which the most intensively used factor was human rather than physical capital. Leontief's study classified such industries as labor-intensive rather than capital-intensive, significantly overestimating the labor-intensity level of US exports.

Further empirical research in this area, which continues to this day, has yielded numerous interesting results. The main direction of such research has been attempts at a more detailed classification of the factors of production taken into account in the model1. The paradox then disappeared, then reappeared, although never in such a sharp form as in Leontiev's original study. The main problem in the empirical verification of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory is the difficulty of using a multivariate model, in particular, the availability and reliability of the available data.

Now no one will argue that the theory of Heckscher-Ohlin is capable of fully explaining the structure of international trade. However, very much in the reality around us corresponds to the predictions of this theory. If you pay attention to the classic labor-intensive goods - cheap clothes, shoes, sports equipment sold in stores and markets in our country, it will not be difficult to notice the wide representation of Southeast Asia - a classic labor-surplus region. Natural resources - energy carriers, metals, etc. are imported mainly from Russia, which has no equal in endowment with natural resources. Knowledge-intensive products that require highly skilled labor (i.e., produced with intensive use of human capital) are complex Appliances, high-quality medicines, etc. - mainly from Western Europe. If we talk about Belarusian exports (meaning exports to countries outside the CIS), then its main items either directly (potash fertilizers) or indirectly (refined products) are resource-intensive goods. Thus, it can be stated that so far there have been no changes in the structure of Belarusian exports that would indicate positive shifts in the structure of the factor supply of our country.

However, one should not assume that the factor endowment of any country is predetermined "initially" and does not change over time. In the process of economic development, the accumulation of physical and human capital takes place, which changes the structure of the provision of a country with factors of production. In this regard, there is also a change in those industries in which countries have comparative advantages. Thus, the new industrial countries of Southeast Asia initially specialized mainly in the simplest labor-intensive goods. As the prosperity of these countries and, consequently, the level of wages increased, there was a change in specialization. At first, these turned out to be industries that intensively use physical capital, and then, to an increasing extent, human capital as well. Naturally, the dynamic development of the economy is a prerequisite for such changes.

The new model was created by the Swedish economists Eli Heckscher and Bertel Ohlin. Up until the 60s. the Heckscher-Ohlin model dominated the economic literature.

The essence of the neoclassical approach to international trade and the specialization of individual countries is as follows: For reasons of historical and geographical nature, the distribution of material and human resources between countries is uneven, which, according to neoclassicists, explains the differences in relative prices for goods, on which, in turn, depend national comparative advantage. From this follows the law of proportionality of factors: in an open economy, each country tends to specialize in the production of goods that require more factors with which the country is relatively better endowed. Olin put this law even more succinctly: "International exchange is the exchange of abundant factors for rare ones: a country exports goods whose production requires more abundant factors."

In accordance with the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, countries will export those goods, the production of which requires significant costs of relatively surplus factors, and import goods, in the production of which relatively scarce factors would have to be intensively used. Thus, in a latent form, excess factors are exported and scarce ones are imported. The intensive use of a factor, for example, labor, in the production of a product means that the share of labor costs in its value is higher than in the cost of other goods (usually such a product is called labor-intensive).

The relative endowment of a country with factors of production is determined as follows: if the ratio between the amount of this factor and other factors in the country is higher than in the rest of the world, then this factor is considered relatively excessive for this country, and vice versa, if the specified ratio is lower than in other countries, the factor is considered deficient.

Practice partly confirms the conclusions of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory. But in recent decades, the structure of the provision of developed countries (especially European) with the necessary production resources has been relatively leveled off, which should have been. According to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, reduce their incentives to trade with each other. However, this does not happen. On the contrary, the center of gravity in international trade is shifting precisely to trade between industrialized countries, that is, countries with approximately the same supply of factors of production. Moreover, the proportion of mutual deliveries of similar products is growing in world trade. industrial goods. This does not fit into the Heckscher-Ohlin theory.

"Leontief's Paradox"

Practical searches in order to confirm or refute the Heckscher-Ohlin theory were largely facilitated by the appearance in the 50s of the so-called "Leontief paradox". V. Leontiev showed that in 1947 the United States, which was considered a capital-abundant country, exported not capital-intensive, but labor-intensive products, although, according to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, the result should have been the opposite. Further studies, on the one hand, confirmed the existence of this paradox in the United States in the post-war period, on the other hand, they showed that capital is not the most abundant factor in the country. Above it are cultivated land and scientific and technical personnel. And here the Heckscher-Ohlin theory was confirmed: the United States turned out to be a net exporter of goods in the production of which these factors are intensively used. Let's consider this in more detail.

Leontiev, later awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, relied on the surest of the instincts in science: to always check whether theoretical conclusions correspond to reality.

This time he decided to test the conclusion of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory that countries tend to export goods in the production of which they intensively use factors that are redundant for them, and import goods in the production of which these factors are used less intensively. More precisely, he wanted to simultaneously test two assumptions: 1) the Heckscher-Ohlin theory is correct, 2) the US economy was widely considered to have more capital surplus than its trading partners.

Leontiev obtained the ratio of the value of fixed capital and the number of workers in the export and import-substituting industries of the United States in 1947. This required calculations of capital and employment not only in several dozen of the industries under consideration, but also taking into account the capital and labor that were contained in their goods as a result of the use of products of other industries. Being one of the pioneers of the input-output balance, he successfully used its capabilities to obtain the necessary estimates of the capital-labor ratio by multiplying the coefficient matrices by the vectors of capital and labor costs, the cost of exports and imports by industry. The test conditions were as follows: if the conclusions of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory are correct, and capital in the United States is relatively more abundant, then the cost of capital per worker in a standard set of goods exported from the United States should be higher than that in import-substituting products included in the standard set of goods imported into the United States.

The paradoxical results obtained by Leontiev puzzled not only himself, but also other economists: it turned out that in 1947 the United States was selling labor-intensive goods to other countries in exchange for relatively capital-intensive ones! The key parameter was only 0.77, whereas, according to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, it should have been much higher than unity.

The most fruitful was the decision to introduce other factors of production into the model. Perhaps, many economists (and Leontiev among them) argued, one should take into account the fact that there are different types of labor, natural resources, capital, and so on. Numerous studies in this direction have led to two main results: 1) confirmed the existence of a "paradox" throughout most of the post-war period; 2) significantly improved our understanding of the availability of factors and the intensity of their use. The first refuted the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, the second supported it.

Despite differences in calculation techniques, all studies have largely confirmed the existence of the Leontief paradox in the United States between World War II and the early 1970s.

who wins and who loses as a result of foreign trade. In a sense, this by-product of the Leontief Paradox controversy compensated for the damage it had done to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory. Of course, the US had some capital surplus and somehow exported less services of this factor than it imported. But research, stimulated by Leontief's work, has shown that capital is by no means the most abundant factor of production in the United States. The first place here belongs to cultivated land and scientific and technical personnel. Indeed, the United States is a net exporter of goods that make intensive use of these factors, in full accordance with the Heckscher-Ohlin theory. Thus, despite some damage done to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory by the Leontief paradox, it was eventually enriched by new results obtained in the course of the study of this riddle.

Thus, the result of the discussion around the "Leontief's paradox" was the tendency to decompose the factors of production and take into account each of the subspecies when explaining the directions of export and import flows. As separate factors capable of providing relative advantages to industries or firms, they began to single out, for example, labor of various qualifications, the quality of managerial personnel, various categories of scientific personnel, various types of capital, etc.

On the other hand, attempts to find a replacement for the Heckscher-Ohlin theory continue. Such, for example, is the theory according to which the countries that specialize in industries receive benefits from foreign trade. Which are characterized by economies of scale (or lower costs per unit of output when increasing production volume). But it is known from microeconomics that in industries with efficient mass production there is usually no free competition, which means that production will be in the hands of large monopolies.

The Heckscher-Ohlin theory complements D. Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage.

The Heckscher-Ohlin theory states that a country exports goods that use a relatively abundant factor of production and imports goods that require relatively scarce resources to produce. The Heckscher-Ohlin theory complements D. Ricardo's theory of comparative advantages and explains what their source is (in the excess of some resources and the scarcity of others).

Assume that country X has a large land resource with a low population density. As a result, the land for conducting Agriculture will be a less scarce resource than in the rest of the world, and in workforce there will be a shortage. Under such conditions, according to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, the country will export “land-intensive” goods and import labor-intensive ones (in Russia, natural resources are a relatively abundant factor of production, and labor is relatively scarce, which leads us to the export of raw materials and the importation of labor-intensive goods).

In general, this theory is confirmed by facts, but requires certain clarifications (which revealed Leontiev's paradox). In particular, taking into account the foreign trade policy of the state and the heterogeneity of factors of production (for example, labor can be skilled and unskilled).

Paul Samuelson supplemented this theory with the factor price equalization theorem. According to it, the relative prices of goods involved in international trade gradually level off. The fact is that participation in international trade causes an increase in the use of an excess factor of production. As a result, its price increases (for example, the growth of exports of labor-intensive products from China led to an increase in wages in this country). The demand for a scarce factor of production decreases due to imports and the price falls.

Leontief's paradox

Wassily Leontiev analyzed US foreign trade in 1947 and 1951. The post-war US economy had a surplus of capital and a relative shortage of labor. According to the Heckscher-Ohlin theory, the share of capital-intensive products in US exports should increase, while the share of labor-intensive products should decrease. However, the results obtained by Leontiev showed that the share of labor-intensive goods in exports did not decrease, while the share of capital-intensive goods in imports did not increase. A lot of discussion began around the paradox, during which some of its causes were identified:

1.Escorting from the US was labor intensive due to the advantage in a highly skilled workforce with a high salary, which, relative to the rest of the world, was a surplus resource.

2. The United States imported a lot of raw materials, the extraction of which required high costs capital. This was the reason for the high capital intensity of imports.

3. The United States used a tariff policy that prevented the import of labor-intensive goods.

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