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The issue of export instability exerts an enduring fascination for economists with an interest in the area of economic development. Over several decades a voluminous literature has emerged embracing debates on the domestic consequences and on the causes of export instability. The purpose here is to examine these debates and an attempt is made to set out different theoretical stances, to classify and examine empirical findings, and to indicate the directions in which the debates have moved. Such a statement of a review article's purpose is, of course, incomplete without more specific delineation of the boundaries within which the general objectives are pursued. Here that delineation has three facets.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the export competitiveness of Pakistan with border-sharing countries, i.e. Afghanistan, China, India and Iran for the year 2014.

The study uses revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) index to measure export competitiveness with border-sharing countries. The study has split the results into highest and marginal comparative advantage and disadvantage according to the rank.

Pakistan is exporting 160, 155, 133 and 60 commodities at three-digit level of Standard International Trade Code (Rev 3) classification to Afghanistan, China, India and Iran, respectively. The results suggest that Pakistan has highest and marginal comparative disadvantage in more than half of these commodities exported to border-sharing countries. Pakistan can improve its market share for rice in Afghanistan, China and Iran. Special measures and productive efforts are required to improve the export competitiveness of cotton, textile yarn and cotton fabric in border-sharing countries.

Pakistan has to adopt special strategies to improve the competitiveness of those commodities that fall in marginal comparative advantage and disadvantage. To increase the volume of cross-border trading, political and diplomatic channels are required among the countries especially the border-sharing countries.

Export competitiveness of Pakistan is analyzed for all the commodities exported to border-sharing countries and categorized into highest and marginal comparative advantage and disadvantage. To avoid the problem of asymmetry in Balassa index revealed comparative advantage, RSCA index is used.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between trade diversion risk and new Halal market exploration.

This paper analyzes the Halal trade flows for Malaysia’s top 11 halal food/food-related commodities from 1967 to 2018 by relying on co-integration and auto-regression techniques.

This paper determines that the greater the country’s current comparative advantage in an exported good, the higher the risk of export diversion between the Halal and conventional markets. The diversion risk, however, disappears with a lower current comparative advantage.

To take advantage of the fast-emerging Halal market, a country should expand export of commodities with relatively low current comparative advantage but high demand in the target market, along with supportive trade policies to build competitiveness in the long term.

This study fills the gap in the literature by investigating if the theory of comparative advantage can predict the market diversification risk that may arise from the expansion of exports to the Halal market occurring alongside existing exports to the conventional market.

In this paper the authors examine evidence on exchange rate predictability through commodity prices for a set of countries categorized as commodity import- and export-dependent developed and emerging countries.

The authors perform in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting analysis. The commodity prices are modeled to predict the exchange rate and to analyze whether this commodity price model can perform better than the random walk model (RWM) or not. These two models are compared and evaluated in terms of exchange rate forecasting abilities based on mean squared forecast error and Theil inequality coefficient.

The authors find that primary commodity prices better predict exchange rates in almost two-thirds of export-dependent developed countries. In contrast, the RWM shows superior performance in the majority of export-dependent emerging, import-dependent emerging and developed countries.

Previous studies examined the exchange rate of commodity export-dependent developed countries mainly. This study examines both developed and emerging countries and finds for which one the changes in prices of export commodities (in case of commodity export-dependent country) or prices of major importing commodities (in case of import-dependent countries) can significantly predict the exchange rate.

This study aims to examine the illicit capital movement through trade misinvoicing in Burundi, at disaggregated levels by major trading partners and by major export and import commodities.

Trade misinvoicing is estimated by comparing the trade values declared by Burundi with those declared by trading partners in a bilateral international transaction, after adjusting for the cost of freight and insurance. Disaggregated trade misinvoicing by major trading partners is computed using the Direction of Trade Statistics database of the International Monetary Fund over the period 1970–2019. Disaggregated trade misinvoicing by major trading commodities is computed using the UN-COMTRADE database over the period 1993–2019.

Exports of Burundi to most of its major trading partners are found to be underinvoiced. The top destinations for export underinvoicing are United Arab Emirates, Belgium and Germany. However, exports to UK and Switzerland are found to be overinvoiced. The major export commodities considered, coffee and gold, are found to be affected by trade misinvoicing to a great extent. On the import side, the estimation results indicate that imports of Burundi from its major trading partners are in general overinvoiced. High import overinvoicing is observed in the trade with Saudi Arabia, China and Japan. At commodity level, for the top 6 commodities considered, imports were to a great extent found to be overinvoiced. Cases of illicit capital outflows and inflows through trade misinvoicing are highlighted.

Some policy implications are drawn from this study. First, in collaboration with its development partners, the Government of Burundi should put in place measures to reduce the trade misinvoicing phenomenon, which undermines poverty reduction efforts. The study has shown which trade partners are involved and which commodities are mostly affected. Policy efforts could then be focused in that regard. Investigations at the company and transaction levels can be made to identify the mechanisms of trade misinvoicing. Second, more effort is needed in ensuring systematic and transparent reporting of international trade transactions. To fight trade misinvoicing, transparency in international trade is key, through coordinated enforcement of reporting rules.

Previous studies analyzed the problem of trade misinvoicing at an aggregated level. However, this leaves out essential information on trading partners involved in the phenomenon as well as trading commodities affected. This study investigates trade misinvoicing at disaggregated levels, at product level and by trading partner.

The gravity theory of trade explains the potential for trade between nations, but its application to trade in halal food has been questioned by previous studies. This study aims to investigate this issue and the role of trading partners’ economic strength and their distance from one another to identify Malaysia’s potential to export food to key halal markets.

The gravity theory of trade was used to examine Malaysia’s top 10 food exports to key halal markets from 2000–2017. The gravity panels were estimated using the Hausman-Taylor modelling technique to control for endogeneity within the model.

The application of the gravity theory of trade to a halal market context provides mixed results. Although the high economic strength (gross domestic product) of the trading partners enhances halal trade, the distance between the partners does not affect the volume of halal food exports. Moreover, the study identifies Malaysia’s potential to export only a few food commodities to key halal markets.

This study challenges the applicability of the gravity theory of trade to the halal food market. The study extends the model with additional controls for behavioural aspects and applies it to commodity-specific segregated trade in halal food. The findings underscore the need to extend the theory beyond its current focus when explaining trade opportunities in halal markets.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the effect of commodity exports from Africa to China on the growth rate of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) after controlling for variables that have been found to be important determinants of economic growth. This study uses a panel of 23 African countries for the period of 2001-2011.

The authors make use of a Barro-type empirical economic growth model which uses per capita GDP as the dependent variable. With regard to independent variables, the authors examine the China effect after controlling for variables that have been found to affect economic growth. To account for the China effect, we use the following three measures of trade with China: commodity export to China, commodity export to China relative to total export and commodity export to China relative to the world. The authors use panel data from 2001 to 2011.

Results indicate that the magnitudes of the effect, while statistically significant, are not large enough to induce positive growth rates. The results also indicate that the magnitudes of the effects depend on the colonial origin of the African countries.

The data are limited to the 2001-2011 time frame because of data availability issues. This time frame does capture the era when China increased its trade with Africa. The choices of variables were also affected by data availability. However, the authors managed to find data on the main drivers of economic growth. Further research is needed to gain a more comprehensive analysis of the effects of commodity trade with China on Africa’s economy, given the partial character of the data set used in this study. Similarly, there is also a need for more detailed information on China’s trade activities.

While the results of this study show an improvement in the per capita growth rate, the changes are not large enough to put African countries on a path to a sustained prosperity. African governments which trade with China should consider investing more in manufacturing, so that they create more jobs locally and benefit more from their exports.

The China–Africa relationship shows a small positive impact on societal well-being.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, none of the existing studies on China–Africa relations attempted to understand the impact of China’s economic activity on the standards of living of African residents, where standard of living is measured by economic growth. The current study aims to bridge this gap. This study complements existing studies and uses a data set and methodology that has not been used before on this issue.