IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/rdevec/v13y2009i1p15-27.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sources of Comparative Advantages in Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Beatriz Muriel
  • Cristina Terra

Abstract

Based on the Heckscher‐Ohlin‐Vanek model, the authors investigate relative factor abundance in Brazil, as revealed by its international trade. They study two different time periods: one characterized by high trade barriers (1980–85) and the trade liberalization period (1990–95). Two alternative methodologies are used: the estimation of factor intensity regressions on net exports and the direct computation of factor content in net exports. In the factor intensity regression, the authors incorporate technological changes that might have occurred over time, and these turn out to be significant. Both methods yield the same results: the Brazilian international trade reveals relative abundance in capital, land, and unskilled labor, and scarcity in skilled labor, with qualitatively equivalent results for the two time periods studied.

Suggested Citation

  • Beatriz Muriel & Cristina Terra, 2009. "Sources of Comparative Advantages in Brazil," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 15-27, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:13:y:2009:i:1:p:15-27
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9361.2008.00493.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9361.2008.00493.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9361.2008.00493.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Trefler, Daniel, 1993. "International Factor Price Differences: Leontief Was Right!," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(6), pages 961-987, December.
    2. Gonzaga, Gustavo & Menezes Filho, Naercio & Terra, Cristina, 2006. "Trade liberalization and the evolution of skill earnings differentials in Brazil," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 345-367, March.
    3. James A. Kahn & Jong-Soo Lim, 1998. "Skilled Labor-Augmenting Technical Progress in U. S. Manufacturing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1281-1308.
    4. Bowen, Harry P & Leamer, Edward E & Sveikauskas, Leo, 1987. "Multicountry, Multifactor Tests of the Factor Abundance Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 791-809, December.
    5. Harkness, Jon P, 1978. "Factor Abundance and Comparative Advantage," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(5), pages 784-800, December.
    6. Branson, William H. & Monoyios, Nikolaos, 1977. "Factor inputs in U.S. trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 111-131, May.
    7. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2001. "An Account of Global Factor Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1423-1453, December.
    8. Edward E. Leamer, 1996. "In Search of Stolper-Samuelson Effects on U.S. Wages," NBER Working Papers 5427, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Harry P. Bowen & Leo Sveikauskas, 1992. "Judging Factor Abundance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 599-620.
    10. Aw, Bee-Yan, 1983. "The interpretation of cross-section regression tests of the heckscher-ohlin theorem with many goods and factors," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1-2), pages 163-167, February.
    11. Leamer, Edward E & Bowen, Harry P, 1981. "Cross-Section Tests of the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem: Comment [Factor Abundance and Comparative Advantage]," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 1040-1043, December.
    12. Susan Chun Zhu & Daniel Trefler, 2000. "Beyond the Algebra of Explanation: HOV for the Technology Age," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 145-149, May.
    13. Leamer, Edward E, 1980. "The Leontief Paradox, Reconsidered," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(3), pages 495-503, June.
    14. Ronald W. Jones, 2018. "The Structure of Simple General Equilibrium Models," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: International Trade Theory and Competitive Models Features, Values, and Criticisms, chapter 4, pages 61-84, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    15. Ramazani, Reza M & Maskus, Keith E, 1993. "A Test of the Factor Endowments Model of Trade in a Rapidly Industrializing Country: The Case of Korea," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(3), pages 568-572, August.
    16. Baldwin, Robert E, 1971. "Determinants of the Commodity Structure of U.S. Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 126-146, March.
    17. Pedro Cavalcanti Ferreira & JosÈ Luiz Rossi, 2003. "New Evidence from Brazil on Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(4), pages 1383-1405, November.
    18. Stern, Robert M. & Maskus, Keith E., 1981. "Determinants of the structure of U.S. foreign trade, 1958-1976," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 207-224, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fally, Thibault & Paillacar, Rodrigo & Terra, Cristina, 2010. "Economic geography and wages in Brazil: Evidence from micro-data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 155-168, January.
    2. Laura Hering & Rodrigo Paillacar, 2016. "Does Access to Foreign Markets Shape Internal Migration? Evidence from Brazil," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 30(1), pages 78-103.
    3. Pedro Moncarz & Marcelo Olarreaga & Marcel Vaillant, 2016. "Regionalism as Industrial Policy: Evidence from MERCOSUR," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 359-373, February.
    4. Osama Elsalih & Kamil Sertoglu & Mustafa Besim, 2021. "Determinants of comparative advantage of crude oil production: Evidence from OPEC and non‐OPEC countries," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 3972-3983, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cörvers F. & Reininga T., 1998. "The Dutch Factor Content of Human and Physical Capital: A Test of the HOV Model," ROA Research Memorandum 001, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    2. Corvers, Frank & de Grip, Andries, 1997. "Explaining trade in industrialized countries by country-specific human capital endowments," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 395-416, July.
    3. Daniel Bernhofen, 2010. "The Empirics of General Equilibrium Tade Theory: What Have we Learned?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3242, CESifo.
    4. Elhanan Helpman, 1999. "The Structure of Foreign Trade," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 121-144, Spring.
    5. Kagawa, Shigemi, 2008. "How does Japanese compliance with the Kyoto Protocol affect environmental productivity in China and Japan?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 173-188, June.
    6. repec:shr:wpaper:13-04 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2001. "An Account of Global Factor Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1423-1453, December.
    8. Harry P. Bowen & Leo Sveikauskas, 1992. "Judging Factor Abundance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 599-620.
    9. Morrow, Peter M., 2010. "Ricardian-Heckscher-Ohlin comparative advantage: Theory and evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 137-151, November.
    10. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2001. "The Factor Content of Trade," NBER Working Papers 8637, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Antoni Estevadeordal & Alan M. Taylor, 2002. "A Century of Missing Trade?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 383-393, March.
    12. Hausmann, Ricardo & Stock, Daniel P. & Yıldırım, Muhammed A., 2022. "Implied comparative advantage," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    13. John Romalis, 2004. "Factor Proportions and the Structure of Commodity Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 67-97, March.
    14. Martino Pelli & Jeanne Tschopp, 2014. "Hurricanes Revisited : Comparative Advantage as a Source of Heterogeneity," Cahiers de recherche 14-09, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    15. Ciaian, Pavel & Kancs, d'Artis & Pokrivcak, Jan, 2011. "Comparative Advantages, Transaction Costs and Factor Content in Agricultural Trade: Empirical Evidence from the CEE - Vantaggi comparati, costi di transazione e contenuto dei fattori nel commercio agr," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 64(1), pages 67-101.
    16. Arnade, Carlos Anthony, 1994. "Testing two trade models in Latin American agriculture," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 49-59, January.
    17. Assaf Zimring, 2019. "Testing the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek theory with a natural experiment," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(1), pages 58-92, February.
    18. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2002. "What Role for Empirics in International Trade?," Aussenwirtschaft, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Swiss Institute for International Economics and Applied Economics Research, vol. 57(04), pages 441-468, December.
    19. Francisco Requena & Andrés Artal & Juana Castillo, 2008. "Testing Heckscher— Ohlin—Vanek Model Using Spanish Regional Data," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 31(2), pages 159-184, April.
    20. Ekholm, Karolina, 1995. "Revealed Factor Abundance and the Factor Content of Trade in Headquarter Services," Working Paper Series 440, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    21. Morrow, Peter M. & Trefler, Daniel, 2022. "How do endowments determine trade? quantifying the output mix, factor price, and skill-biased technology channels," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F11 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Neoclassical Models of Trade
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:rdevec:v:13:y:2009:i:1:p:15-27. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1363-6669 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.