The Skill and Higher Educational Content of Uk Net Exports

This paper reports evidence on the factor content of UK trade in 1984 in terms of both broad aggregates of factors and of disaggregated skill categories. It also reports the result of a similar analysis of the higher educational content of UK net exports. This provides not only a measure of the sources of a country's comparative advantage but also of the relative scarcity of factors of production. The study finds that the UK was scare in both skilled manual and semi-skilled manual labor relative to unskilled labor in 1984. It also finds that the UK is relatively poorly endowed in many professional skills in comparison to sales and clerical skills. Higher education, however, is found to be a source of comparative advantage.