Faktorgehalt und internationaler Handel

The empirical relevance of the Heckscher-Ohlin "factor abundance" theorem of international trade has been the subject of many studies, beginning with the pioneering one of Leontief (1953). Accordingly, relative factor endowments should affect observed trade patterns. The principle purpose of this paper is to demonstrate recent theoretical advances applying the factor content of trade to analyze existing relationships between factor prices and factor content as a means of testing the theorem empirically. At the empirical level, however, it is found that the literature on this important subject still offers no generally accepted answer. This may not be as surprising as first glance suggests, given the rising importance of alternative determinants of trade flows other than factor abundancyl.