Why might Belgium, France, Italy, and Sweden have a higher export to GDP ratio than the United States? Select the correct answer below:

A. The U. S. contains more of the division of labor inside its borders, while the other countries need to trade across borders in order to take advantage of division of labor, specialization, and economies of scale.

B. The U. S. is more affected by globalization than the other countries.

C. The share of U. S. exports in proportion to the U. S. economy is well above the global average, while the share of exports in the other countries is well below the global average.

D. The U. S. economy is heavily regulated, while the other countries have free economies.

The answer is: A) The US contains more of the division of labor inside its border, while the other countries need to trade to take advantage of division of labor, specialization and economies of scale.

Explanation:

The US is probably one of the few countries in the world (if not the only one) were you can find all the different types of industries. For instance, the US is one of the largest producer of agricultural products, has huge natural resources (oil, natural gas and minerals), still produces manufactured goods and has the largest tech industry in the world.

Countries like Belgium, France, Italy and Sweden are very rich countries, with a high GDP per capita, but their economies are not as diverse as the American economy. That means that they have to specialize on certain industries and trade with other countries in order to get the products they lack.

Luxembourg (a very small and extremely wealthy European country) has the highest export to GDP ratio in the world. Its economy is based on financial services (36% of GDP), steel and heavy industrial sectors only, while only 0.3% of its economy is based on agriculture. So we can guess that they need to trade.