Leontief Paradox


Leontief Paradox

The concept that countries with a great deal of capital available import capital intensive commodities and export labor intensive commodities. This contradicts what one would expect: before the paradox was uncovered, economic theory held that countries would export according to their competitive advantages (that is, capital intensive countries would import labor intensive products and export capital intensive products). The Leontief paradox led to rejection or revision of the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem.