Theory of Comparative Advantage
Historically, nations have been trading with each other for hundreds of years for profit or because they do not have enough resources (land, labor and capital) to satisfy all the needs of consumers.
For example, Japan has a highly skilled labor force that use technologically advanced equipment to produce cars and electrical equipment; however it does not have its own oil fields. Saudi Arabia has large supplies of oil, but lacks the built capital to produce cars and electrical equipment.
Trade between Saudi Arabia and Japan will allow both countries to obtain goods and services that they cannot produce themselves. Specialization and trade can then deliver higher living standards to all countries as resources are being used more efficiently.
Definition of Comparative Advantage
To illustrate the concept of comparative advantage requires at least two goods and at least two places where each good could be produced with scarce resources in each place. The example drawn here is from Ehrenberg and Smith (1997), page 136. Suppose the two goods are food and clothing, and that "the price of food within the United States is 0.50 units of clothing and the price of clothing is 2 units of food. [Suppose also that] the price of food in China is 1.67 units of clothing and the price of clothing is 0.60 units of food." Then we can say that "the United States has a comparative advantage in producing food and China has a comparative advantage in producing clothing. It follows that in a trading relationship the U.S. should allocate at least some of its scarce resources to producing food and China should allocate at least some of its scarce resources to producing clothing, because this is the most efficient allocation of the scarce resources and allows the price of food and clothing to be as low as possible.
Theory of comparative advantage
Adam Smith's theory of absolute advantage is a simple explanation of the benefits of international trade. However, if one country has an absolute advantage in the production all goods, can there be benefits from trade.
In 1817, David Ricardo, a classical economist developed the principal of comparative advantage to explain this situation. The principal is based on the relative efficiencies of production where each country has a comparative advantage in producing the commodity in which it has the lower opportunity cost.
Opportunity costs are what must be given up in order to consume or produce another good.
To reiterate, let’s construct another example of two companies that produce oranges. Company number one is located in Florida where it’s the perfect environment to produce oranges. Company number two however is located in Toronto, which to be fair, isn 't a suitable environment to produce natural oranges, unless of course they’re produced in a green house. Although both companies are able to grow and produce oranges, company number one has the absolute advantage because they use the much cheaper and natural methods, hence the greater demand. This theory can be contradicted with the concept of comparative advantage, which in description means the ability to produce specific goods at a lower opportunity
Trade is the most common form of transferring ownership of a product. The concepts are very simple, I give you something (a good or service) and you give me something (a good or service) in return, everyone is happy. However, trade is not limited to two individuals. There are trades that happen outside national borders and we refer to that as international trading. Before a country does international trading, they do research to understand the opportunity costs and marginal costs of their production versus another countries production. Doing this we can increase profit, decrease costs and improve overall trade efficiency. Currently, there are negotiations going on between 11 countries about making a trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific
In this chapter of Naked Economics, by Charles Wheelan, he describes many aspects of trade. It begins by showing the capabilities of trade and how it affects everyone as a whole. It makes it so that everyone is better off than normal. To put it into perspective, he put the image in your head of how hard your life would be without trade, you would have to make your own clothes, find a way to get/make your own food, make your own car, etc... After showing some of the advantages to trade, he applies it to a global persona and begins to introduce his opinion on how global trade (globalization) makes us richer. One of the key explanations of this point is that trade frees up time in our busy schedule, therefore allowing us to use that freed up
Trade, of course, is only part of a larger network of relationships between our two countries. This network evolves in response to many complex influences, and exporters need to consider how our two countries' ever-expanding, ever-changing relationships will affect their activities. To take just a few examples:
The trend toward a more globalized market has become increasingly developed in the latter half of the 20th century. Emphasis on world trade has become a dominant figure in almost every Nation’s economy. Between 1970 and 2000 world trade has experienced an increase of almost 370 percent. Concurrently, world GDP increased by 150 percent. Trade is beneficial to Nations because it allows the creation of avenues that aid in efficient allocation of resources (Canas & Coronado). Countries can gain from trade when they specialize according to their comparative advantage. This is, when they create conditions where goods and services can be produced at a lower opportunity cost than in any other country. Along the same logic, countries can also make large profits by taking advantage of another countries comparative advantage.
The goals and functions of world trade today vary from when it started. Long distance trading today is a big part of everyday life for us. Most of our products, as you can see, come from China, Japan, Italy and other places across the ocean. Where would we be today if long distance trading wasn’t a part of everyday life? Asia and Europe play a huge part in our lives, and in what we eat, function with, and for children, play with. When long distance trading first started, it wasn’t as important as it is now. Traders mostly supplied goods for the rich who could afford these valuable goods, and afford the long distance accommodations. Supplies like gold, spices, silks, and others were sold to the rich and they were valued depending on weight and distance of the trade. A large part of the exchange economy was local, dealing with crops, and local manufactured products. The only problem with this was that it wasn’t pricey and it didn’t weigh much compared to long distance supplies, which made it difficult to make any profit whatsoever. Sometimes, to help out locals and the upper echelon, goods were traded for other goods instead of money. The most important part of trade was having a market to trade with. If there was no market, there was no business, and if there is no business there was no jobs, and money coming in for locals in that area. (The Worlds History, Spodek, 2001, Ch. 12)
Few governments will argue that the exchange of goods and services across international borders is a bad thing. However, the degree to which an international trading system is open may come into contest with a state’s ability to protect its interests. Free trade is often portrayed in a good light, with focus placed on the material benefits. Theoretically, free trade enables a distribution of resources across state lines. A country’s workforce may become more productive as it specializes in products that it has a comparative advantage. Free trade minimizes the chance that a market will have a surplus of one product and not enough of another. Arguably, comparative specialization leads to efficiency and growth.
policies or does not educate its citizens, then if rich natural resources like oil would be available
Opportunity cost is defined as the decision made to give up the highest-valued alternative in order to engage in another activity (Garnet & O’Brien). Alternatively, opportunity cost can be defined as the highest value alternative that is given up in order to undertake a particular activity. Opportunity cost is generally defined in monetary terms, such as the government spending $550 million on upgrading the Adelaide oval rather than placing that money into the public transport system. However, opportunity cost can be shown in general
Even though specialization will give comparative advantage, which is the ability of a firm or individual to produce goods or services at a lower opportunity cost than other firms or individuals, economic interdependence will scare some countries to specialize in something and dependently import something else from the other countries. In conclusion, interdependence will contribute to imperfect specialization in international trade. These factors clearly represent the factors that cause incomplete specialization. There are so many research supporting these factors that this essay has discussed. Furthermore, the example can be found recently between countries.
Krugman defines comparative advantage as “the view that countries trade to take advantage of their differences” (1987, p. 132). Comparative advantage theories assume constant returns to scale and perfect competition. Krugman writes that trade exists when countries differ from one another in goods they have to offer, technology, or factor endowments. Although there are multiple models explaining the cause of trade, each differs as to what factors are included to explain why trade takes place. Economist Ohlin and authors Burenstam-Linder and Vernon began introducing counter-points to comparative advantage as early as the late 1950’s, saying that formal models of comparative advantage did not take into account all factors affecting international trade. International specialization and trade caused by increasing returns, as well as economies of scale and techn...
A more powerful nation can better its own economy by sharing the resources of other nations and
Comparative advantage means that an industry, firm, country or individual are able to produce goods and services at a lower opportunity cost than others which are also producing the same goods and services. Also, in order to be profitable, the number in exports must be higher than the number in import. From the diagram we seen above, Singapore is seen to have a comparative advantage in some services. The services are Transport, Financial, business management, maintenance & Repair and Advertising & Market Research, etc. These export services to other countries improve the balance of payment. On the other side, Singapore is seen to have a comparative disadvantage in some services. The services are Travel, Telecommunications, Computer & Information,
All nations can get the benefits of free trade by being specialized in producing goods they have a comparative advantage and then trade them with goods produced by other nations in the world. This is evidenced by comparative advantage theory. Trade depends on many factors, country's history, institution, size and. geographical position and many more. Also, the countries put trade barriers for the exchange of their goods and services with other nations in order to protect their own company from foreign competition, or to protect consumers from undesirable products, or sometimes it may be inadvertent.
The Law of Comparative Advantage was introduced by David Ricardo in 1817 in his book ‘Principles of Political Economy and Taxation’. According to this classical theory, a comparative advantage exists for a country when it has a margin of superiority in the production of a certain commodity over others. Comparative advantage results from differing endowments in the factors of production like technology, natural endowments, climate, etc. among different countries. Therefore, each country exports the commodities which it can produce at a lower opportunity cost or, in other words, lower marginal cost of production and imports the rest. This would ultimately be beneficial for all countries engaging in free trade as each would gain through its specialization