The political economy of international trade and factor mobility
回顾了国际贸易与要素流动的政治经济学文献,指出商品和要素的自由流动在理论上有效率,但现实中存在政策扭曲,且现有研究对两者干预的比较和整合不足。
Abstract. Free trade in goods and factors is efficient. When we move away from economic theory and consider the policies actually followed by governments, we observe distortions being implemented both on goods and factors trades. It is natural then to question the relative merits of the two types of intervention, and the normative literature has provided only partial answers. We ask then why is the international flow of goods and factors not free, and the political economy literature has looked at the two issues only separately. In studying the determination of trade policy, a theoretical paradigm has emerged, focusing on the role of influence driven contributions. This approach has also found strong empirical support. The literature on the political economy of factor mobility, on the other hand, is fragmented. Distortions in labor and capital flows are typically the subject of different studies, and only recently a unified framework has been proposed. More work has to be done in this area as well as in integrating the political economy of trade and factor movements.