Eli Heckscher
Eli Heckscher | |
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Died | 23 December 1952 Stockholm | (aged 73)
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Eli Filip Heckscher (24 November 1879 – 23 December 1952) was a Swedish political economist and economic historian.
Biography
Heckscher was born in Stockholm, son of the Jewish Danish-born businessman Isidor Heckscher and his spouse Rosa Meyer, and completed his secondary education there in 1896. He conducted higher studies at
Eli Heckscher's son was
By 1950 Heckscher had published 1148 books and articles. Well known were his study of Mercantilism, which was translated into several languages, and a monumental Economic history of Sweden in several volumes.[3]
Heckscher's most important work, though, is his
Heckscher was a member of the American Philosophical Society.[5]
Heckscher–Ohlin theorem
The Heckscher–Ohlin Theorem, which is concluded from the Heckscher–Ohlin model of international trade, states: trade between countries is in proportion to their relative amounts of capital and labor. In countries with an abundance of capital, wage rates tend to be high; therefore, labor-intensive products, e.g. textiles, simple electronics, etc., are more costly to produce internally. In contrast, capital-intensive products, e.g. automobiles, chemicals, etc., are less costly to produce internally. Countries with large amounts of capital will export capital-intensive products and import labor-intensive products with the proceeds. Countries with high amounts of labor will do the reverse.
The following conditions must be true:
- The major factors of production, namely labor and capital, are not available in the same proportion in both countries.
- The two goods produced either require more capital or more labor.
- Labor and capital do not move between the two countries.
- There are no costs associated with transporting the goods between countries.
- The citizens of the two trading countries have the same needs.
The theory does not depend on total amounts of capital or labor, but on the amounts per worker. This allows small countries to trade with large countries by specializing in production of products that use the factors which are more available than its trading partner. The key assumption is that capital and labor are not available in the same proportions in the two countries. That leads to specialization, which in turn benefits the country's economic welfare. The greater the difference between the two countries, the greater the gain from specialization.
References
- ^ "Eli F Heckscher – Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon". sok.riksarkivet.se.
- ^ Hasselberg, 2006
- ^ Donald Cuthbert Coleman, "Eli Heckscher and the idea of mercantilism." Scandinavian Economic History Review 5.1 (1957): 3–25.
- ^ Heckscher, E. (1919). The Effect of Foreign Trade on the Distribution of Income. Ekonomisk Tidskrift, 497-512. Reprinted as Chapter 13 in A.E.A. (1949). Readings in the Theory of International Trade, 272-300 (Philadelphia: Blakiston) with a Translation in H. Flam and M. J. Flanders (Eds.). 1991. Heckscher-Ohlin Trade Theory, 43-69. Cambridge: MIT Press.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-05-03.
Sources
- Bertil Ohlin, "Heckscher, Eli Filip", Svenskt biografiskt lexikon, vol. 18, pp. 376–381.
Further reading
- Carlson, Benny, and Lars Jonung. "Knut Wicksell, Gustav Cassel, Eli Heckscher, Bertil Ohlin and Gunnar Myrdal on the role of the economist in public debate." Econ Journal Watch 3.3 (2006): 511+ online.
- Coleman, Donald Cuthbert, "Eli Heckscher and the idea of mercantilism." Scandinavian Economic History Review 5.1 (1957): 3–25 online.
- Hasselberg, Ylva. "Networks and Scientific Integrity: Eli Heckscher and the Construction of Economic History in Sweden, 1920–1950." Scandinavian Economic History Review 54.3 (2006): 273–290.
- Eli Heckscher, International Trade, and Economic History, Findlay, Ronald, Rolf G. H. Henriksson, Håkan Lindgren and Mats Lundahl, eds., The MIT Press, 2007.
- Heckscher, Eli F. (1922). Westergaard, Harald (ed.). The Continental System: An Economic Interpretation (1 ed.). Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. Retrieved 2 June 2016 – via Internet Archive.
External links
- 1879 births
- 1952 deaths
- Writers from Stockholm
- Swedish economists
- 20th-century Swedish historians
- Swedish Jews
- Jewish historians
- Economic historians
- Trade economists
- Uppsala University alumni
- University of Gothenburg alumni
- Academic staff of the Stockholm School of Economics
- Member of the Mont Pelerin Society
- Members of the American Philosophical Society