IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bic/journl/v12y2012i2p17-45.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Competitiveness of Latvia's exporters

Author

Listed:
  • Konstantīns Beņkovskis

    (Monetary Policy Department, Bank of Latvia)

Abstract

This paper evaluates the competitiveness of Latvia's exporters from various aspects by using detailed trade data from UN Comtrade. Competitiveness represented by the market share of Latvia's products in world trade was on a rising trend, growing almost two times between 1999 and 2010. This dynamic improvement was mainly accounted for by intensive margin, as Latvia's exporters increased their presence on traditional markets. Moreover, the contribution of extensive margin was also positive due to geographical expansion. Analysis of non-price competitiveness signals that although Latvia's export unit values were increasing faster than those of its main competitors, relative quality and taste for Latvia's products were rising even faster, and, overall, the competitiveness of Latvia's exporters improved.

Suggested Citation

  • Konstantīns Beņkovskis, 2012. "Competitiveness of Latvia's exporters," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 12(2), pages 17-45, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bic:journl:v:12:y:2012:i:2:p:17-45
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/1406099X.2012.10840516
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gabriel J Felbermayr & Wilhelm Kohler, 2014. "Exploring the Intensive and Extensive Margins of World Trade," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: European Economic Integration, WTO Membership, Immigration and Offshoring, chapter 4, pages 115-148, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Christian Broda & David E. Weinstein, 2006. "Globalization and the Gains From Variety," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 541-585.
    3. Konstantins Benkovskis & Julia Wörz, 2012. "Non-Price Competitiveness Gains of Central, Eastern and Southeastern European Countries in the EU Market," Focus on European Economic Integration, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 3, pages 27-47.
    4. 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.
    5. Feenstra, Robert C, 1994. "New Product Varieties and the Measurement of International Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 157-177, March.
    6. Mary Amiti & Caroline Freund, 2010. "The Anatomy of China's Export Growth," NBER Chapters, in: China's Growing Role in World Trade, pages 35-56, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Michael Funke & Ralf Ruhwedel, 2005. "Export variety and economic growth in East European transition economies," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 13(1), pages 25-50, January.
    8. Dennis, Allen & Shepherd, Ben, 2007. "Trade costs, barriers to entry, and export diversification in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4368, The World Bank.
    9. Miss Catriona Purfield & Mr. Christoph B. Rosenberg, 2010. "Adjustment Under a Currency Peg: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania During the Global Financial Crisis 2008-09," IMF Working Papers 2010/213, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Leamer, Edward E, 1981. "Is It a Demand Curve, or Is It a Supply Curve? Partial Identification through Inequality Constraints," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 63(3), pages 319-327, August.
    11. Krugman, Paul R., 1979. "Increasing returns, monopolistic competition, and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 469-479, November.
    12. Besedes, Tibor & Prusa, Thomas J., 2011. "The role of extensive and intensive margins and export growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 371-379, November.
    13. Konstantins Benkovskis & Ramune Rimgailaite, 2011. "The quality and variety of exports from the new EU member states," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 19(4), pages 723-747, October.
    14. Konstantins Benkovskis & Julia Woerz, 2012. "Evaluation of Non-price Competitiveness of Exports from Central, Eastern and Southeastern European Countries in the EU Market," Working Papers 2012/01, Latvijas Banka.
    15. Richardson, J. David, 1971. "Constant-market-shares analysis of export growth," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 227-239, May.
    16. Uwe Dulleck & Neil Foster & Robert Stehrer & Julia Woerz, 2005. "Dimensions of quality upgrading," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 13(1), pages 51-76, January.
    17. David Hummels & Peter J. Klenow, 2005. "The Variety and Quality of a Nation's Exports," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 704-723, June.
    18. repec:lmu:muenar:20646 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Konstantins Benkovskis & Julia Wörz, 2011. "How Does Quality Impact on Import Prices?," Working Papers 175, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    20. Flam, Harry & Helpman, Elhanan, 1987. "Vertical Product Differentiation and North-South Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 810-822, December.
    21. Mr. Ashoka Mody & Ms. Deniz O Igan & Ms. Stefania Fabrizio, 2007. "The Dynamics of Product Quality and International Competitiveness," IMF Working Papers 2007/097, International Monetary Fund.
    22. Sato, Kazuo, 1976. "The Ideal Log-Change Index Number," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 58(2), pages 223-228, May.
    23. Martine Durand, 1986. "Method of Calculating Effective Exchange Rates and Indicators of Competitiveness," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 29, OECD Publishing.
    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. Ieva Brauksa & Ludmila Fadejeva, 2013. "Internal Labour Market Mobility in 2005-2011: The Case of Latvia," Working Papers 2013/02, Latvijas Banka.
    2. Arnis Sauka, 2014. "Measuring the competitiveness of Latvian companies," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 14(1-2), pages 140-158, December.
    3. Falkowski Krzysztof, 2018. "Competitiveness of the Baltic States in International High-Technology Goods Trade," Comparative Economic Research, Sciendo, vol. 21(1), pages 25-43, March.
    4. Talis J. Putninš, 2013. "Exporting by Latvian companies: vitality, drivers of success, and challenges," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 13(2), pages 3-33, December.
    5. Olivier Blanchard & Mark Griffiths & Bertrand Gruss, 2013. "Boom, Bust, Recovery Forensics of the Latvia Crisis," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 47(2 (Fall)), pages 325-388.
    6. Olivier Blanchard & Mark Griffiths & Bertrand Gruss, 2013. "Boom, Bust, Recovery: Forensics of the Latvia Crisis," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 44(2 (Fall)), pages 325-388.
    7. Wörz, Julia & Benkovskis, Konstantins & Silgoner, Maria & Steiner, Katharina, 2013. "Crowding-out or co-existence? the competitive position of EU members and China in global merchandise trade," Working Paper Series 1617, European Central Bank.
    8. Zuzana Smidova, 2015. "Policy areas for increasing productivity in Latvia," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1255, OECD Publishing.

    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. Benkovskis, Konstantins & Wörz, Julia, 2018. "What drives the market share changes? Price versus non-price factors," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 9-29.
    2. Konstantins Benkovskis & Julia Wörz, 2016. "Non-price competitiveness of exports from emerging countries," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 707-735, September.
    3. Konstantins Benkovskis & Julia Woerz, 2012. "Evaluation of Non-price Competitiveness of Exports from Central, Eastern and Southeastern European Countries in the EU Market," Working Papers 2012/01, Latvijas Banka.
    4. Benkovskis, Konstantins & Wörz, Julia, 2018. "What drives the market share changes? Price versus non-price factors," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 9-29.
    5. repec:zbw:bofitp:2013_018 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Konstantins Benkovskis & Julia Wörz, 2014. "How does taste and quality impact on import prices?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(4), pages 665-691, November.
    7. Konstantins Benkovskis & Julia Wörz, 2011. "How Does Quality Impact on Import Prices?," Working Papers 175, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    8. Konstantins Benkovskis & Ramune Rimgailaite, 2011. "The quality and variety of exports from the new EU member states," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 19(4), pages 723-747, October.
    9. Konstantins Benkovskis & Julia Wörz, 2016. "Non-price competitiveness of exports from emerging countries," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 707-735, September.
    10. Gao, Yue & Whalley, John & Ren, Yonglei, 2014. "Decomposing China's export growth into extensive margin, export quality and quantity effects," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 19-26.
    11. Benkovskis Konstantins & Wörz Julia, 2018. "“Made in China”: how does it affect our understanding of global market shares?," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(2), pages 1-26, June.
    12. Konstantins Benkovskis & Julia Wörz, 2012. "Non-Price Competitiveness Gains of Central, Eastern and Southeastern European Countries in the EU Market," Focus on European Economic Integration, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 3, pages 27-47.
    13. Lukas Mohler, 2014. "Variety Gains and the Extensive Margin of Trade," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 543-558, December.
    14. Türkcan, Kemal, 2014. "Exports Margins in Austria’s Export Growth," MPRA Paper 53085, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Jonathan Eaton & Ana Cecília Fieler, 2019. "The Margins of Trade," NBER Working Papers 26124, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Ardelean, Adina & Lugovskyy, Volodymyr, 2010. "Domestic productivity and variety gains from trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 280-291, March.
    17. Türkcan, Kemal, 2014. "Investigating the Role of Extensive Margin, Intensive Margin, Price and Quantity Components on Turkey’s Export Growth during 1998-2011," MPRA Paper 53292, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Ricardo Arguello, 2017. "Trade diversification in Colombia, 1991-2011," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, vol. 36(71), pages 345-378, July.
    19. Lukas Mohler & Michael Seitz, 2012. "The gains from variety in the European Union," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 148(3), pages 475-500, September.
    20. C. Veeramani & Prachi Gupta, 2014. "Extensive and Intensive Margins of India's Exports: Comparison with China," Working Papers id:5808, eSocialSciences.
    21. Kozo Kiyota, 2010. "Are US Exports Different from China’s Exports? Evidence from Japan’s Imports," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(10), pages 1302-1324, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    exports; extensive margin; intensive margin; non-price competitiveness; Latvia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • F12 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies; Fragmentation
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality

    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:bic:journl:v:12:y:2012:i:2:p:17-45. 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: Anna Zasova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/biceplv.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.