The Case of the Missing Trade and Other Mysteries: Comment
对Trefler（1995）关于HOV模型贸易谜团的解释提出质疑，通过非参数方法衡量要素稀缺性测量误差，并发现国内要素流动性差异比国家间生产率差异更能解释贸易数据中的反贸易偏向。
Daniel Trefler’s article in this journal (Daniel Trefler, 1995) is an excellent investigation of observed patterns and volumes of trade. He identifies the theoretical predictions of factorproportions models of international trade put forward by Eli F. Heckscher (1991), Bertil G. Ohlin (1991), and Jaroslav Vanek (1968) and summarizes these as the HOV model. These theoretical predictions lead to a number of “mysteries” when examined empirically— “mystery” being a code word for rejection by the data. He then introduces a number of extensions of the HOV model, and gauges empirically the extent to which the modified HOV model is rejected relative to each extension. For each extension, he examines the persistence of the mysteries; in his favored specification of country-specific neutral technological difference and preference for home goods in demand, the anomalies in the data are found to be greatly reduced. In this paper, I demonstrate that there are alternative explanations for the mysteries that Trefler identified. I indicate the features of the data that lead to the mysteries and provide an intuitive separation of the mysteries into those observed in the pattern of trade and those observed in the volume of trade. Econometric tests demonstrate that explanations other than those put forward by Trefler are better supported by the data. There are three specific contributions of this Comment. First, alternative explanations of the success of Trefler’s preferred specification in modeling variation in trade data are put forward. Second, a nonparametric method for calculating the degree of mismeasurement of factor scarcity is introduced and the improvement in explanatory power of that method is measured. Third, statistical comparison of an explanation of the observed antitrade bias rooted in factor-specific differences in domestic factor mobility with Trefler’s explanation based upon country-specific productivity differences and home bias in expenditures yields the conclusion that differences in domestic factor mobility is the preferred explanation. These results, taken together, suggest that theories designed to explain observed trade patterns and volumes should reexamine the proxy for factor scarcity derived in the HOV model and should allow for the impact of factor-specific differences in the domestic mobility of factors of production.