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The Stolper–Samuelson Theorem Faces Congress
Author(s) -
Beaulieu Eugene
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
review of international economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.513
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1467-9396
pISSN - 0965-7576
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9396.00336
Subject(s) - corollary , economics , voting , factor endowment , endowment , empirical evidence , econometrics , macroeconomics , public economics , microeconomics , international trade , political science , comparative advantage , law , mathematics , politics , pure mathematics , philosophy , epistemology
The factor–industry detachment corollary of the Stolper–Samuelson theorem predicts that the economic interests of trade policy are independent of industry and depend only on the type of factor ownership. This paper examines whether congressional voting patterns on trade policy are determined by the factor endowment of the constituency or by its industrial composition. The industry model of trade policy determination is not rejected by the empirical tests while the results for the factor model are ambiguous. This provides evidence that the literature examining congressional voting patterns on broad‐based trade policy should re‐evaluate the maintained assumption that factors do not matter.