TY - JOUR AU - Kotlikoff,Laurence J. AU - Leamer,Edward E. TI - Empirical Tests of Alternative Models of International Growth JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 1414 PY - 1987 Y2 - May 1987 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1414 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1414.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Laurence J. Kotlikoff Department of Economics Boston University 270 Bay State Road Boston, MA 02215 Tel: 617/353-4002 Fax: 617/353-4001 E-Mail: kotlikoff@gmail.com Edward E. Leamer John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management UCLA Box 951481 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481 Tel: 310/206-1452 Fax: 310/825-4011 E-Mail: edward.leamer@anderson.ucla.edu M1 - published as Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Edward E. Leamer. "Empirical Tests of Alternative Models of International Growth," in Colin I. Bradford, Jr. and William H. Branson, editors, "Trade and Structural Change in Pacific Asia" University of Chicago Press (1987) AB - Recent changes in patterns of international trade and growth have rekindled interest in the relationships among trade, growth, and the international distribution of income. Three alternative models can serve as a theoretical foundation for an empirical analysis of these relationships. The first is the standard Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson (Ho) trade model with equalnumbers of factors and goods and incomplete specialization. The second model allows complete specialization and more goods than factors. The third model posits short run capital immobility. Each of these models has quite different implications for the determination of wage levels and growth rates.The conclusions that we draw from this research are rather mixed. Each of the models perform well on certain criteria and poorly on others. While the standard HO model clearly fails to satisfy certain cross-equation constraints, national endowments are remarkably good predictors of the locus of international production. There are, however, significant nonlinearities in the relationship between factor allocations and national endowments. Such nonlinearities are predicted by the uneven version of the HO model. At odds with both of these models is our finding that lagged values of inputs providean important explanation of current factor demands. Such correlations are suggested by the adjustment cost model. ER -