Trade, turnover, and tithing

This paper examines the hypothesis that turnover affects trade preferences. High turnover industries are similar to the Stolper-Samuelson assumption of perfect factor mobility, so factor of production drives trade preferences. Among low turnover industries, as in the specific factors model, net export position determines trade preferences. We show that PAC contribution patterns are consistent with this hypothesis. In high turnover industries, capital groups give significantly larger shares of their campaign contributions to free trade supporters than labor groups do. Among low turnover industries, on the other hand, exporting and import-competing groups differ significantly in their financial support for free traders.