THEORETICAL NOTES ON TRADE PROBLEMS贸易问题的理论注记.pdfVIP

NOTES ON TRADEPROBLEMS THEORETICAL Paul A. Samuelson 1. Introduction. One of the great pleasures where, call it Europe, let unit labor require- in my life has been preparing chapters for ments for those goods be given by (a,,a,,a) = various SeymourHarris symposia, and I should (2,3,5). We are more efficient in every good like nothing better than to spend the next than they; but obviously our comparative ad- hundred years doing the same at five-year vantage is greatest in good 3 and least in good intervals. In connection with the problem of 1, by virtue of the inequalities 5/1 3/1 the international balance of payments, it oc- 2/1. The whole content of the theory of com- curredto me to reread the 1948 theoretical es- parative advantage is this: say I preparedfor his Foreign Economic Policy We can never be exporting a good i while for the United States (Harvard Press). It was exportinga goodj if our comparativeadvantage a theoretical exercise because I didnt have the is in good j rather than in good i - that is, if leisure then to prepare an empirical one. Find- ajlAj aJ1A. ing that it stands up better than I had dared This does not say that our current balance hope and again lacking leisure, I venture to must or will balance, or that our total balance jot down (on the back of an envelope, so to of payments will be in any kind of equilibrium. speak) some theoretical notes relevant to pres- In this two-country many-goodcase, the money ent balance-of-payments problems. It will be wage rates here and abroad,W and w, together evident that I am not aiming at comprehensive- with the foreign exchange rate, R (t