The Determinants of Individual Trade Policy Preferences: International Survey Evidence



where PROTECTij is the extent to which individual] in country i is protectionist; SKILLj is a
measure of the individual’s skill; GDPCAPi is the GDP per capita of country i; and Xij is a vector of
control variables.6 In this set-up, the test of whether Heckscher-Ohlin theory holds is the sign of the
interaction term, β2, which should be negative, since in richer countries high-skilled workers should
be more in favor of free trade (i.e. less protectionist).7

Second, we run country-specific regressions of the form

PROTECTj = α + β1SKILLj + β2Xj + εj                 (2)

and compare the β1 coefficients across countries. Again, the test ofHeckscher-Ohlin theory is
whetherthese coefficients are systematically lower (i.e. more negative) in richer, more skill-abundant
countries.

3. The data

What do we need to accomplish our objectives? We need a data set that provides information
on individuals’ trade preferences, socio-economic position, socio-demographic characteristics and
political attitudes. Since the Heckscher-Ohlin model predicts that skill levels will have different
implications for trade policy preferences in different countries, the data should be cross-national in
scope.

What we have are data provided by the 1995 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP)
module on national identity. The ISSP is an international consortium of survey research agencies that

6 Equations (1) and (2) are used for expositional purposes; however, because of the nature of the data,
we actually estimate non-linear ordered probit models, as explained below. As shown the
specification incorporates country dummies, but we also experiment by running regressions without
these country fixed effects.

7 We used country GDP per capita rather than educational attainment variables for reasons given in
Section 4; this amounts to assuming that GDP per capita is highly correlated with country
endowments ofhuman capital.



More intriguing information

1. Can we design a market for competitive health insurance? CHERE Discussion Paper No 53
2. A Hybrid Neural Network and Virtual Reality System for Spatial Language Processing
3. NVESTIGATING LEXICAL ACQUISITION PATTERNS: CONTEXT AND COGNITION
4. The name is absent
5. Outsourcing, Complementary Innovations and Growth
6. Analyzing the Agricultural Trade Impacts of the Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement
7. Elicited bid functions in (a)symmetric first-price auctions
8. Personal Income Tax Elasticity in Turkey: 1975-2005
9. The name is absent
10. Cardiac Arrhythmia and Geomagnetic Activity
11. AMINO ACIDS SEQUENCE ANALYSIS ON COLLAGEN
12. sycnoιogιcaι spaces
13. Review of “The Hesitant Hand: Taming Self-Interest in the History of Economic Ideas”
14. Structural Conservation Practices in U.S. Corn Production: Evidence on Environmental Stewardship by Program Participants and Non-Participants
15. The name is absent
16. The Impact of Minimum Wages on Wage Inequality and Employment in the Formal and Informal Sector in Costa Rica
17. Tourism in Rural Areas and Regional Development Planning
18. Accurate, fast and stable denoising source separation algorithms
19. Empirically Analyzing the Impacts of U.S. Export Credit Programs on U.S. Agricultural Export Competitiveness
20. Perfect Regular Equilibrium