Reacting to Samuelson: Early Development Economics and the Factor-Price Equalization Theorem

Mauro Boianovsky

Review of Political Economy, 2021, vol. 33, issue 4, 631-655

Abstract: Paul Samuelson’s 1948 factor-price equalization theorem was his main contribution to international trade theory. He demonstrated conditions under which trade in goods would lead to full equalization of the remuneration of productive factors across countries. In practice, general factor-price equalization has not been a feature of the international economy, as Samuelson acknowledged. His theorem came out when development economics was starting to emerge as a new field of research and policy, largely based on observed international income asymmetries between poor and rich countries. The present paper provides an historical investigation into how development economists reacted mostly (but not always) critically to that theorem, with attention to the methodological issues involved and to Samuelson’s own perception of the theorem’s relevance.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09538259.2020.1815969 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:33:y:2021:i:4:p:631-655

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CRPE20

DOI: 10.1080/09538259.2020.1815969

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Political Economy is currently edited by Steve Pressman and Louis-Philippe Rochon

More articles in Review of Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().