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About eight cents out of every dollar spent in the United States is spent on imports. What if, because of a wall or some other extreme policy intervention, imports were to remain on the other side of the US border? How much would US consumers be willing to pay to prevent this hypothetical policy change from taking place? The answer to this question represents the welfare cost from autarky or, equivalently, the welfare gains from trade. In this article, we discuss how to evaluate these gains using estimates of the demand for foreign factor services.

The Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek (HOV) theorem, which predicts that countries will export products that are made from factors in great supply, performs poorly. However, deviations from HOV follow pronounced patterns. Trade is missing relative to its HOV prediction. Also, rich countries appear scarce in most factors and poor countries appear abundant in all factors, a fact that squares poorly with the HOV prediction that abundant factors are exported. As suggested by the patterns, HOV is rejected empirically in favor of a modification that allows for home bias in consumption and international technology differences.

This paper develops and tests hypotheses that explain the choice of accounts receivable management policies. The tests focus on both cross-sectional explanations of policy-choice determinants, as well as incentives to establish captives. We find size, concentration, and credit standing of the firm's traded debt and commercial paper are each important in explaining the use of factoring, accounts receivable secured debt, captive finance subsidiaries, and general corporate credit. We also offer evidence that captive finance subsidiaries, and general corporate credit. We also offer evidence that captive formation allows more flexible financial contracting. However, we find no evidence that captive formation expropriates bondholder wealth.

Relaxing the assumption of internationally identical factor intensity techniques in the HOV model creates two challenges. First, computing actual factor intensity techniques of different countries requires detailed input-output tables and factor usage data, which are not always available. Second, determinants of the factor intensity technique differences across countries need to be identified. This paper explores the role of relative factor price differences in the determination of factor intensity technique differences across countries and proposes an inferring method that infers factor intensity techniques of different countries based on relative factor price differences. The HOV model is then modified accordingly.

Factoring is a financial service enabling enterprises to sell their accounts receivable to a factoring company in exchange for cash. The market for factoring in the UK has been growing at substantial rates and most banking institutions are now actively involved in providing this service. Little research on the factoring market currently exists and so this paper seeks to profile the determinants influencing decision making in the UK factoring industry. Using data from an interview-based survey, this paper establishes that the decision to purchase an enterprise's accounts receivable is influenced by the enterprise's size, type of product or service it offers, industry, sector, age, type of customers, financial statement, the management team, operational suitability, collectability and credit notes.

This article develops an alternative method to investigate trade in embodied environmental factor services (EEFS) and applies it to bilateral trade between APEC economies. The issue of regional cooperation and the environment is addressed by investigating trade in EEFS between APEC economies in the last three decades. We observe a 'cascading' pattern in net exports of EEFS between East Asian economies. However, we do not observe a similar pattern in the trade between North American economies. The results should be interpreted with caution since the application of US sectoral pollution intensity data to other countries may lead to biased estimation of trade in EEFS. /// Dieser Artikel entwickelt eine alternative Methode zur Untersuchung des Handels mit den Dienstleistungen, die die Umwelt als Produktionsfaktor bei der Herstellung von Gütern bereitstellt (EEFS, embodied environmental factor services), und wendet diese auf den bilateralen Handel zwischen den APEC-Ländern an. Der Zusammenhang zwischen einer sich verstärkenden regionalen Kooperation und der Umweltnutzung in den entsprechenden Ländern wird untersucht, indem der Handel mit EEFS zwischen den APEC-Ländern während der letzten drei Jahrzehnte analysiert wird. Es lässt sich ein kaskadenähnliches Muster in den Netto-Exporten von EEFS im Handel zwischen den ostasiatischen Volkswirtschaften feststellen. Beim EEFS-Handel zwischen nordamerikanischen Volkswirtschaften kann jedoch kein ähnliches Muster entdeckt werden. Bei der Interpretation der Ergebnisse ist allerdings Vorsicht geboten, da die Anwendung von US-amerikanischen Daten der sektoralen Umweltverschmutzungsintensität auf andere Länder die Schätzung des Handels mit EEFS verzerren kann.

Trade in services has become topical, but little theory has been developed. This paper assumes that one commodity and the services of capital are tradable and examines the traditional trade results. Service trade can produce the same equilibrium as commodity trade, but substantial differences exist depending on whether the tradable commodity is capital or labor intensive. Tariffs on either commodity have the same commodity price effects and will always increase the welfare of the immobile factor labor. Factor income taxes can also affect trade patterns. When both goods and capital services are tradable, there is an indeterminacy in trade patterns, and tariffs, while reducing commodity trade, may not reduce welfare.

Recent theory casts doubt on the frequently used interindustry regression method of inferring a country's abundant factors. This paper examines the empirical importance of these theoretical qualifications by comparing regression-derived estimates of factor abundance with both revealed and actual factor abundances for 35 countries and 12 resources. We demonstrate the theoretical importance of trade imbalances for the reliability of the regression estimates and therefore propose and implement a theoretically consistent trade imbalance correction. The results indicate that, despite valid theoretical concerns, the regression estimates are generally reliable indicators of revealed factor abundance. Therefore, the innumerable regression studies conducted over the past 30 years can be considered to provide reliable evidence concerning the validity of the factor abundance theory.

The essay recounts the contributions of earlier economists to the discussion of the social costs of monopoly. They largely duplicate more contemporary contributions.