關於貿易條件變動對實質所得及貿易餘額的影響，1950年代Harberger-Laursen-Metzler提出貿易條件的不利衝擊會造成經常帳的惡化。1980年代Matsuyama則提出由於產品部門要素密集度不同，貿易條件改變進而影響貿易餘額變動的方向也不同。本文依循HLM效應理論架構，建立涵蓋臺灣整體及個別產品貿易條件、實質所得及貿易餘額的實證模型。利用結構式向量自我迴歸、衝擊反應函數及預測誤差變異分解等實證步驟，進行動態效果評估。實證結果說明臺灣整體貿易條件的非預期正向衝擊，對臺灣實質國民所得與臺灣貿易餘額有立即且負向之影響，不符合HLM效應。而臺灣機械及電子設備業、塑膠製品業、化學製品業貿易條件的非預期正向衝擊，對臺灣實質所得及該產業貿易餘額有立即且正向之影響，與HLM效應相符，臺灣紡織業則否。本研究發現，各產品部門要素密集度的差異性並不會影響該產業貿易條件、實質所得與該產業貿易餘額之間的相關性。
About the effects of the terms of trade changes on real income and trade balance, in the 1950’s Harberger and Laursen and Metzler argued that an adverse shock to the terms of trade will worsen the current account balance. In the 1980’s Matsuyama argued that, because the factor intensities of the production sectors are different, the effects of the terms of trade changes on trade balance are different, too. According to Harberg- er-Laursen-Metzler’s frame of effective theory, this paper is to establish empirical model including whole Taiwan and specific product’s terms of trade, real income and trade balance. And by using empirical process of structural vector auto regression model, im-pulse response function and forecast error variance decomposition, it is to estimate dy-namic effects. Empirical results show that an unanticipated positive shock to the terms of trade in Taiwan as a whole lead to an immediate and adverse effect on Taiwanese real income and Taiwanese trade balance. This is not consistent with HLM effect. But unan-ticipated positive shocks to the terms of trade for the machinery and electronic equip-ment industry, plastic products industry and chemical products industry in Taiwan lead to immediate and positive effects on Taiwanese real income and industrial trade balance, which is consistent with HLM effect but textile industry. This paper shows that the dif-ferences between factor intensities of specific products do not affect the relationship among the industrial terms of trade ,real income and industrial trade balance.
