IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aal/abbswp/98-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Revealed Comparative Advantage and the Alternatives as Measures of International Specialisation

Author

Listed:
  • Keld Laursen

Abstract

The paper is an analysis of Balassa’s ‘revealed comparative advantage’ (RCA). The papers shows that when using the RCA, it should always be adjusted in such a way, so that it becomes symmetric. The conclusion is based on a theoretical discussion of the properties of the measure, but also on convincing empirical evidence, based on the Jarque-Bera test of normality of the error terms from regressions, using both the RCA and the ‘Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage’ (the RSCA). The RSCA is also compared to other measures of international trade specialisation. These measures included the Michaely index and the chi square measure. The conclusion emerging from the analysis is that the RSCA is - on balance - the best measure of comparative

Suggested Citation

  • Keld Laursen, 1998. "Revealed Comparative Advantage and the Alternatives as Measures of International Specialisation," DRUID Working Papers 98-30, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:aal:abbswp:98-30
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://wp.druid.dk/wp/19980030.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Krugman, Paul, 1980. "Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 950-959, December.
    2. Bent Dalum & Keld Laursen & Gert Villumsen, 1998. "Structural Change in OECD Export Specialisation Patterns: de-specialisation and 'stickiness'," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(3), pages 423-443.
    3. Grupp, Hariolf, 1994. "The measurement of technical performance of innovations by technometrics and its impact on established technology indicators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 175-193, March.
    4. Thomas Vollrath, 1991. "A theoretical evaluation of alternative trade intensity measures of revealed comparative advantage," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 127(2), pages 265-280, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    revealed comparative advantage; international specialisation;

    JEL classification:

    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aal:abbswp:98-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Keld Laursen). General contact details of provider: https://www.druid.dk/ .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.