國際經濟學答案英

1、.Chapter 21Home has 1200 units of labor available. It can produce two goods, apples and bananas. The unit labor requirement in apple production is 3, while in banana production it is 2. aGraph out the production possibilities frontier: bWhat is the opportunity cost of apples in terms of bananas?cIn

2、the absence of trade, what would the price of apples in terms of bananas be? In the absence of trade, since labor is the only factor of production and supply decisions are determined by the attempts of individuals to maximize their earnings in a competitive economy, only when will both goods be prod

3、uced. So 2Home is as described in problem 1. There is now also another country, Foreign, with a labor force of 800. Foreigns unit labor requirement in apple production is 5, while in banana production it is 1. aGraph Foreigns production possibilities frontier: bConstruct the world relative supply cu

4、rve.3Now suppose world relative demand takes the following form: Demand for apples/demand for bananas = price of bananas/price of apples. aGraph the relative demand curve along with the relative supply curve: When the market achieves its equilibrium, we have RD is a hyperbola bWhat is the equilibriu

5、m relative price of apples? The equilibrium relative price of apples is determined by the intersection of the RD and RS curves. RD: RS: cDescribe the pattern of trade. In this two-country world, Home will specialize in the apple production, export apples and import bananas. Foreign will specialize i

6、n the banana production, export bananas and import apples. dShow that both Home and Foreign gain from trade. International trade allows Home and Foreign to consume anywhere within the colored lines, which lie outside the countries production possibility frontiers. And the indirect method, specializi

7、ng in producing only one production then trade with other country, is a more efficient method than direct production. In the absence of trade, Home could gain three bananas by foregoing two apples, and Foreign could gain by one foregoing five bananas. Trade allows each country to trade two bananas f

8、or one apple. Home could then gain four bananas by foregoing two apples while Foreign could gain one apple by foregoing only two bananas. So both Home and Foreign gain from trade.4Suppose that instead of 1200 workers, Home had 2400. Find the equilibrium relative price. What can you say about the eff

9、iciency of world production and the division of the gains from trade between Home and Foreign in this case?RD: RS: In this case, Foreign will specialize in the banana production, export bananas and import apples. But Home will produce bananas and apples at the same time. And the opportunity cost of

10、bananas in terms of apples for Home remains the same. So Home neither gains nor loses but Foreign gains from trade.5Suppose that Home has 2400 workers, but they are only half as production in both industries as we have been assuming, Construct the world relative supply curve and determine the equili

11、brium relative price. How do the gains from trade compare with those in the case described in problem 4?In this case, the labor is doubled while the productivity of labor is halved, so the effective laborremains the same. So the answer is similar to that in 3. And both Home and Foreign can gain from

12、 trade. But Foreign gains lesser compare with that in the case 4. 6”Korean workers earn only $2.50 an hour; if we allow Korea to export as much as it likes to the United States, our workers will be forced down to the same level. You cant import a $5 shirt without importing the $2.50 wage that goes w

13、ith it.” Discuss. In fact, relative wage rate is determined by comparative productivity and the relative demand for goods. Koreas low wage reflects the fact that Korea is less productive than the United States in most industries. Actually, trade with a less productive, low wage country can raise the

14、 welfare and standard of living of countries with high productivity, such as United States. So this pauper labor argument is wrong.7Japanese labor productivity is roughly the same as that of the United States in the manufacturing sector (higher in some industries, lower in others), while the United

15、States, is still considerably more productive in the service sector. But most services are non-traded. Some analysts have argued that this poses a problem for the United States, because our comparative advantage lies in things we cannot sell on world markets. What is wrong with this argument? The co

16、mpetitive advantage of any industry depends on both the relative productivities of the industries and the relative wages across industries. So there are four aspects should be taken into account before we reach conclusion: both the industries and service sectors of Japan and U.S., not just the two s

17、ervice sectors. So this statement does not bade on the reasonable logic.8Anyone who has visited Japan knows it is an incredibly expensive place; although Japanese workers earn about the same as their U.S. counterparts, the purchasing power of their incomes is about one-third less. Extend your discus

18、sing from question 7 to explain this observation. (Hint: Think about wages and the implied prices of non-trade goods.) The relative higher purchasing power of U.S. is sustained and maintained by its considerably higher productivity in services. Because most of those services are non-traded, Japanese

19、 could not benefit from those lower service costs. And U.S. does not have to face a lower international price of services. So the purchasing power of Japanese is just one-third of their U.S. counterparts.9How does the fact that many goods are non-traded affect the extent of possible gains from trade

20、? Actually the gains from trade depended on the proportion of non-traded goods. The gains will increase as the proportion of non-traded goods decrease. 10We have focused on the case of trade involving only two countries. Suppose that there are many countries capable of producing two goods, and that

21、each country has only one factor of production, labor. What could we say about the pattern of production and in this case? (Hint: Try constructing the world relative supply curve.) Any countries to the left of the intersection of the relative demand and relative supply curves export the good in whic

22、h they have a comparative advantage relative to any country to the right of the intersection. If the intersection occurs in a horizontal portion then the country with that price ratio produces both goods. Chapter 31. In 1986, the price of oil on world markets dropped sharply. Since the United States

23、 is an oil-importing country, this was widely regarded as good for the U.S. economy. Yet in Texas and Louisiana 1986 was a year of economic decline. Why?It can deduce that Texas and Louisiana are oil-producing states of United States. So when the price of oil on world markets declined, the real wage

24、 of this industry fell in terms of other goods. This might be the reason of economic decline in these two states in 1986.2。An economy can produce good 1 using labor and capital and good 2 using labor and land. The total supply of labor is 100 units. Given the supply of capital, the outputs of the tw

25、o goods depends on labor input as follows:To analyze the economys production possibility frontier, consider how the output mix changes as labor is shifted between the two sectors.a. Graph the production functions for good 1 and good 2. b. Graph the production possibility frontier. Why is it curved?Q

26、1Q2L1L2PPF The PPF is curved due to declining marginal product of labor in each good. The total labor supply is fixed. So as L1 rises, MPL1 falls; correspondingly, as L2 falls, MPL2 rises. So PP gets steeper as we move down it to the right.2. The marginal product of labor curves corresponding to the

27、 production functions in problem2 are as follows:a. Suppose that the price of good 2 relative to that of good 1 is 2. Determine graphically the wage rate and the allocation of labor between the two sectors.With the assumption that labor is freely mobile between sectors, it will move from the low-wag

28、e sector to the high-wage sector until wages are equalized. So in equilibrium, the wage rate is equal to the value of labors marginal product.The abscissa of point of intersection illustrated above should be between (20, 30). Since we only have to find out the approximate answer, linear function cou

29、ld be employed.The labor allocation between the sectors is approximately L1=27 and L2=73. The wage rate is approximately 0.98.b. Using the graph drawn for problem 2, determine the output of each sector. Then confirm graphically that the slop of the production possibility frontier at that point equal

30、s the relative price.Q1Q2L1L2PPF The relative price is P2/P1=2 and we have got the approximate labor allocation, so we can employ the linear function again to calculate the approximate output of each sector: Q1=44 and Q2=90.c. Suppose that the relative price of good 2 falls to 1. Repeat (a) and (b).

31、The relative decline in the price of good 2 caused labor to be reallocated: labor is drawn out of production of good 2 and enters production of good 1 (1=62, L2=38). This also leads to an output adjustment, that is, production of good 2 falls to 68 units and production of good 1 rises to 76 units. A

32、nd the wage rate is approximately equal to 0.74.Q1Q2L1L2PPFd. Calculate the effects of the price change on the income of the specific factors in sectors 1 and 2.With the relative price change from P2/P1=2 to P2/P1=1, the price of good 2 has fallen by 50 percent, while the price of good 1 has stayed

33、the same. Wages have fallen too, but by less than the fall in P2 (wages fell approximately 25 percent). Thus, the real wage relative to P2 actually rises while real wage relative to P1 falls. Hence, to determine the welfare consequence for workers, the information about their consumption shares of g

34、ood 1 and good 2 is needed. 3. In the text we examined the impacts of increases in the supply of capital and land. But what if the mobile factor, labor, increases in supply?a Analyze the qualitative effects of an increase in the supply of labor in the specific factors model, holding the price of bot

35、h goods constant.For an economy producing two goods, X an Y, with labor demands reflected by their marginal revenue product curves, there is an initial wage of w1 and an initial labor allocation of Lx=OxA and Ly=OyA. When the supply of labor increases, the right boundary of the diagram illustrated b

36、elow pushed out to Oy. The demand for labor in sector Y is pulled rightward with the boundary. The new intersection of the labor demand curves shows that labor expands in both sectors, and therefore output of both X and Y also expand. The relative expansion of output is ambiguous. Wages paid to work

37、ers fall. Wb Graph the effect on the equilibrium for the numerical example in problems 2 and 3, given a relative price of 1, when the labor force expands from 100 to 140. With the law of diminishing returns, the new production possibility frontier is more concave and steeper (flatter) at the ends wh

38、en total labor supply increases.L1 increase to 90 from 62 and L2 increases to 50 from 38. Wages decline from 0.74 to 0.60. This new allocation of labor leads to a new output mix of approximately Q1=85 and Q2=77.Q1Q2L1L2PPFChapter 41 In the United States where land is cheap, the ratio of land to labo

39、r used in cattle rising is higher than that of land used in wheat growing. But in more crowded countries, where land is expensive and labor is cheap, it is common to raise cows by using less land and more labor than Americans use to grow wheat. Can we still say that raising cattle is land intensive

40、compared with farming wheat? Why or why not? The definition of cattle growing as land intensive depends on the ratio of land to labor used in production, not on the ratio of land or labor to output. The ratio of land to labor in cattle exceeds the ratio in wheat in the United States, implying cattle

41、 is land intensive in the United States. Cattle is land intensive in other countries too if the ratio of land to labor in cattle production exceeds the ratio in wheat production in that country. The comparison between another country and the United States is less relevant for answering the question.

42、2 Suppose that at current factor prices cloth is produced using 20 hours of labor for each acre of land, and food is produced using only 5 hours of labor per acre of land. a. Suppose that the economys total resources are 600 hours of labor and 60 acres of land. Using a diagram determine the allocati

43、on of resources. We can solve this algebraically since L=LC+LF=600 and T=TC+TF=60. The solution is LC=400, TC=20, LF=200 and TF=40.LaborLandClothFoodb. Now suppose that the labor supply increase first to 800, then 1000, then 1200 hours. Using a diagram like Figure4-6, trace out the changing allocati

44、on of resources. LaborLandClothFood0l8000l10000l1200c. What would happen if the labor supply were to increase even further?At constant factor prices, some labor would be unused, so factor prices would have to change, or there would be unemployment.3. “The worlds poorest countries cannot find anythin

45、g to export. There is no resource that is abundant certainly not capital or land, and in small poor nations not even labor is abundant.” Discuss.The gains from trade depend on comparative rather than absolute advantage. As to poor countries, what matters is not the absolute abundance of factors, but

46、 their relative abundance. Poor countries have an abundance of labor relative to capital when compared to more developed countries.4. The U.S. labor movement which mostly represents blue-collar workers rather than professionals and highly educated workers has traditionally favored limits on imports

47、form less-affluent countries. Is this a shortsighted policy of a rational one in view of the interests of union members? How does the answer depend on the model of trade?In the Ricardos model, labor gains from trade through an increase in its purchasing power. This result does not support labor unio

48、n demands for limits on imports from less affluent countries. In the Immobile Factors model labor may gain or lose from trade. Purchasing power in terms of one good will rise, but in terms of the other good it will decline. The Heckscher-Ohlin model directly discusses distribution by considering the

49、 effects of trade on the owners of factors of production. In the context of this model, unskilled U.S. labor loses from trade since this group represents the relatively scarce factors in this country. The results from the Heckscher-Ohlin model support labor union demands for import limits.5. There i

50、s substantial inequality of wage levels between regions within the United States. For example, wages of manufacturing workers in equivalent jobs are about 20 percent lower in the Southeast than they are in the Far West. Which of the explanations of failure of factor price equalization might account

51、for this? How is this case different from the divergence of wages between the United States and Mexico (which is geographically closer to both the U.S. Southeast and the Far West than the Southeast and Far West are to each other)?When we employ factor price equalization, we should pay attention to i

52、ts conditions: both countries/regions produce both goods; both countries have the same technology of production, and the absence of barriers to trade. Inequality of wage levels between regions within the United States may caused by some or all of these reasons.Actually, the barriers to trade always

53、exist in the real world due to transportation costs. And the trade between U.S. and Mexico, by contrast, is subject to legal limits; together with cultural differences that inhibit the flow of technology, this may explain why the difference in wage rates is so much larger.6. Explain why the Leontief

54、 paradox and the more recent Bowen, Leamer, and Sveikauskas results reported in the text contradict the factor-proportions theory.The factor proportions theory states that countries export those goods whose production is intensive in factors with which they are abundantly endowed. One would expect t

55、he United States, which has a high capital/labor ratio relative to the rest of the world, to export capital-intensive goods if the Heckscher-Ohlin theory holds. Leontief found that the United States exported labor-intensive goods. Bowen, Leamer and Sveikauskas found that the correlation between fact

56、or endowment and trade patterns is weak for the world as a whole. The data do not support the predictions of the theory that countries exports and imports reflect the relative endowments of factors.7. In the discussion of empirical results on the Heckscher-Ohlin model, we noted that recent work sugg

57、ests that the efficiency of factors of production seems to differ internationally. Explain how this would affect the concept of factor price equalization. If the efficiency of the factors of production differs internationally, the lessons of the Heckscher-Ohlin theory would be applied to “effective

58、factors” which adjust for the differences in technology or worker skills or land quality (for example). The adjusted model has been found to be more successful than the unadjusted model at explaining the pattern of trade between countries. Factor-price equalization concepts would apply to the effective factors. A worker with more skills or in a country with better technology could be considere