IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ifwkie/3429.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Revealed comparative advantages in the services trade of the United States, the European Union and Japan: what do they tell us?

Author

Listed:
  • Langhammer, Rolf J.

Abstract

The paper argues that measuring revealed comparative advantages (RCA) in international trade in services cannot be straightforwardly compared to RCA in trade in goods. The essential difference is that services are internationally exchanged not only by cross-border trade mainly subject to relative resource endowment but also by factor movements (primarily foreign direct investment). The latter modes of supply are determined by characteristics of services such as the need of close producer-consumer proximity. In addition, the policy influence in RCA for trade in services is not dominated by border measures but by a variety of domestic regulations. The paper measures RCA for the US, EU and Japanese service trade and shows strengths on the US side and weaknesses on the Japanese side with the EU in-between. Finally, measuring RCA for US trade in two different modes (cross-border trade and commercial presence) yields similar results in some service sectors but not in all.

Suggested Citation

  • Langhammer, Rolf J., 2004. "Revealed comparative advantages in the services trade of the United States, the European Union and Japan: what do they tell us?," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 3429, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkie:3429
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/3429/1/langhammer_advantages.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Siegfried Bender & Kui-Wai Li, 2002. "The Changing Trade and Revealed Comparative Advantages of Asian and Latin American Manufacture Exports," Working Papers 843, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    2. Balassa, Bela, 1986. "Comparative Advantage in Manufactured Goods: A Reappraisal," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(2), pages 315-319, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joseph Francois & Bernard Hoekman, 2010. "Services Trade and Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 642-692, September.
    2. Joanna Stefaniak-Kopoboru & Joanna Kuczewska, 2016. "Export Specialization In Services Of The Visegrad Countries," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 11(2), pages 265-284, June.
    3. Roy, Martin, 2010. "Endowments, power, and democracy: Political economy of multilateral commitments on trade in services," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2010-11, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    4. Makoto Hisanaga, 2007. "Comparative Advantage Structure of U.S. International Services," KIER Working Papers 633, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    5. Maureen Were & Maureen Odongo, 2019. "Competitiveness and diversification of service exports in sub-Saharan Africa: The case of the East African Community," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-89, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. López, Andrés & Niembro, Andrés & Ramos, Daniela, 2014. "Latin America’s competitive position in knowledge-intensive services trade," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), August.
    7. Adam A. Ambroziak & Joanna Stefaniak, 2022. "The position of China in trade in services within the European Union," Oeconomia Copernicana, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 13(2), pages 335-354, June.
    8. Dimitrios Karkanis & Myrsini Fotopoulou, 2023. "Import Substitution or Just “Catching the Wave”? Evidence from the Greek Manufacturing Exports," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 5, pages 3-15.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Binoy Goswami & Hiranya K. Nath, 2021. "India'S Revealed Comparative Advantages In Merchandise Trade With Country Groups At Different Levels Of Development," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(2), pages 377-397, April.
    2. Hiranya K. Nath & Binoy Goswami, 2018. "India’s comparative advantages in services trade," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 8(2), pages 323-342, August.
    3. Gibba, Alieu, 2017. "Trade Competitiveness In Global Tropical Fruits," Review of Agricultural and Applied Economics (RAAE), Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak Agricultural University in Nitra, vol. 20(1), April.
    4. Andrea Zaghini, 2006. "Commercial Specialisation in the Countries of Central-Eastern Europe," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 3, July.
    5. D.-L. Phan, 1989. "Politique agricole commune et évolution de l'avantage comparatif : les produits agro-alimentaires (1973-1983)," Cahiers d'Economie et Sociologie Rurales, INRA Department of Economics, vol. 10, pages 5-23.
    6. Siegfried Bender & Kui-Wai Li, 2002. "The Changing Trade and Revealed Comparative Advantages of Asian and Latin American Manufacture Exports," Working Papers 843, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    7. Stefanescu, Razvan & Dumitriu, Ramona, 2014. "Investigation on the relationship between Romanian foreign trade and industrial production," MPRA Paper 62547, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Erik Lundbäck & Johan Torstensson, 1998. "Demand, comparative advantage and economic geography in international trade: Evidence from the OECD," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 134(2), pages 230-249, June.
    9. Ricardo Hausmann & Bailey Klinger, 2007. "The Structure of the Product Space and the Evolution of Comparative Advantage," CID Working Papers 146, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    10. Mohammad Ali Feizpour & Abolfazl Shahmohammadi Mehrjardi, 2014. "Comparative Advantages and Sustainable Development in Iranian Manufacturing Industries," Iranian Economic Review (IER), Faculty of Economics,University of Tehran.Tehran,Iran, vol. 18(1), pages 33-52, Winter.
    11. Nisha Taneja & Saon Ray & Devyani Pande, 2016. "India –Pakistan Trade: Textiles and Clothing," Working Papers id:11056, eSocialSciences.
    12. Depetris Guiguet, Edith & García Arancibia, Rodrigo & Rossini, Gustavo, 2010. "Consistencia de indicadores de especialización en el comercio internacional. Aplicación al caso de la mantequilla en Argentina y Uruguay = Consistency of Specialization Indicators. An Application to A," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 9(1), pages 85-105, June.
    13. Christian Estmann & Bjørn Bo Sørensen & Benno Ndulu & John Rand, 2022. "Merchandise export diversification strategy for Tanzania: Promoting inclusive growth, economic complexity and structural change," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(8), pages 2649-2695, August.
    14. Arvis, Jean-Francois, 2013. "How many dimensions do we trade in ? product space geometry and latent comparative advantage," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6478, The World Bank.
    15. Escaith, Hubert, 2007. "Old and new dualisms in Latin America and Asia: labour productivity, international competitiveness and income distribution," MPRA Paper 14510, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2008.
    16. Stellian, Rémi & Danna-Buitrago, Jenny Paola, 2022. "Which revealed comparative advantage index to choose? Theoretical and empirical considerations," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), December.
    17. Sebastián Bustos & Charles Gomez & Ricardo Hausmann & César A Hidalgo, 2012. "The Dynamics of Nestedness Predicts the Evolution of Industrial Ecosystems," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-8, November.
    18. Zaghini, Andrea, 2003. "Trade advantages and specialisation dynamics in acceding countries," Working Paper Series 249, European Central Bank.
    19. Crespi, John M. & Hahn, William & Jones, Keithly & Schulz, Lee L. & Chen, Chen-Ti, 2016. "A Study in U.S. Export Beef Competitiveness: Do Cattle Inventories Matter?," 2017 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 6-8, 2017, Chicago, Illinois 250113, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. Waqar Akhtar & M. Sharif & Hassnain Shah, 2009. "Competitiveness of Pakistani Fruits in the World Market," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 14(2), pages 125-133, Jul-Dec.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    trade in services; trade liberalization; EU customs union;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - 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:zbw:ifwkie:3429. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.