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The purpose of this study is to identify US textile and apparel (TAP) products and categories that demonstrate export comparative advantage and their respective country destinations.

Revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and normalized revealed comparative advantage (NRCA) in the long term (1996-2016) and short term (2010-2016) using two-digit Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System codes (HS codes) provide an insight into export advantage of TAP products. Non-parametric rank correlation (i.e. Spearman rank correlation) tests consistency between RCA and NRCA. Subsequently, NRCA using four-digit HS codes identify textile sub-categories with export comparative advantage. Bilateral trade data identify export destinations for sub-categories that indicate US export comparative advantage in the short term.

Aggregated product-level comparison of RCA and NRCA ranking indicates a consistent positive correlation between the two indices. The disaggregated findings reveal cotton fiber HS5201, artificial filament tow HS5502, non-wovens HS5603, cotton yarn HS5205, carpet and other floor coverings HS5703 and worn clothing HS6309 as sources of US TAP export advantage.

This research provides a comprehensive, current analysis of the US competitive position within the TAP global environment. Incorporation of NRCA into the study’s design demonstrates the flexibility of this measure in a new industry context.

The purpose of this study is to estimate revealed comparative advantage and normalized revealed comparative advantage (NRCA) indices of India’s computer and information services (CIS) export competitiveness with regard to information technology (IT) competing developing nations, such as China, Philippines, Malaysia and Brazil.

Using annual data of total exports for CIS, transportation (TNS), travel (TVL) and insurance (INS) services under service categories of the balance of payment, the present study estimates the pattern of comparative advantage (CA) in India’s CIS exports with respect to IT competing developing nations such as China, Philippines, Malaysia and Brazil from 2000 to 2018. The choice of the study period is determined by the availability of consistent data on IT service exports of these nations. The study also estimates the export position of CIS export in comparison to India’s traditionally strong commercial services export of TNS, TVL and INS during the study period.

Both the indices showed that India had a strong CA in CIS compared to the selected nations, indicating India’s relative export performance to be stronger than that of China, Malaysia, Philippines and Brazil. The cross-service index showed that India’s relative specialization level in CIS with respect to the world’s average specialization level was stronger than its relative specialization level in TNS, TVL and INS services. Furthermore, The NRCA cross-nation index showed that India’s NRCA index score has been declining since 2010 with respect to these nations, which implied a decline in the competitiveness of CIS. On the other hand, NRCA has increased in the case of Philippines, Malaysia and Brazil for most of the period post-2010.

IT is a dynamic area of economic activity, and when the pace of change is so rapid, the relevance of individual factors can change over time. The study period is also limited to the available data.

The paper has implications for attaining sustainability in IT export growth. It is suggested that policies are directed at enhancing the overall performance of IT sector.

The novelty of the present study lies in the estimation of India’s competitiveness in IT exports in relation to the group of reference countries. With its policy recommendations, this research is helping to shape the sustainability of the IT sector.

Given the dominant share of India in global production of fruits and vegetables, this paper intends to analyze the export competitiveness of India and other major food exporters in the world trade. The purpose of this study is to examine export structure, substitutability and complementarity of selected fresh and processed fruits and vegetables of top ten food exporters for the period 2010-20.

Balassa’s (1965) revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index was used to measure RCA indices of selected fruits and vegetables under study. Also, revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) and normalized RCA (NRCA) indices have been calculated. Further, Spearman rank correlation coefficients were computed to analyze changes over the study period for India and other competing countries. The export data have been sourced from UN Comtrade, an electronic database of United Nations, as well as World Trade Statistical Review, a database of World Trade Organization. The analysis was undertaken at Harmonized System (HS) four-digit classification for the period 2010-20.

The results disclosed an improvement in India’s comparative advantage over the period of 2010-20 in HS 07 product category, whereas the advantage ceded to other competitive nations in HS 08 product category. Further, Spearman rank correlation coefficients revealed that India faces competition from countries like China, Indonesia, Brazil, Thailand, Argentina and European Union for HS 07 product category, while countries like Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil and Thailandare the major competitors of India in HS 08 product category.

The paper expands the existing agricultural trade literature in three ways. First, it is one of the very few studies that have analyzed RCA for Indian fresh and processed fruits and vegetables using three different types of indices, namely, Balassa’s RCA, RSCA and NRCA. Second, the authors provide a number of comparisons related to RCA for Indian fruits and vegetables with other top food exporters in the world for a period of 10 years (2010-20). Third, the authors contribute to agricultural trade literature by assessing the substitutability or complementarity of India in the export of fruits and vegetables with other competing nations by using Spearman rank correlation coefficients.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the global competitiveness of the top ten wooden furniture exporting countries with several approaches and to test the effect of export prices (EXPRs) on the global competition.

Countries' competitiveness levels were measured with revealed comparative advantage (RCA), normalised RCA (NRCA), revealed symmetric comparative advantage (RSCA) and trade balance index. Furthermore, panel regression analysis techniques were used to test the effects of EXPR on RCA, NRCA and RSCA in the wooden furniture industry (WFI).

Although the comparative advantage approaches give different results, the global competitiveness of Poland and Vietnam is at a high level in all approaches. Canada has been the country with the weakest global competitiveness in all approaches. According to the results of the analysis, EXPRs positively affect all the competitive advantage indexes. As a result, the competitiveness of the WFI is affected by the non-price factors instead of the EXPR.

The framework allows us to measure and illustrate the export competitiveness of the WFI and permits a global comparison. Similar analyses can be made for different labour-intensive sectors. In addition, analysis can be made to identify non-price factors for the WFI sector. Thus, more specific inferences can be made.

This study is useful for policymakers, government officials, the industry associations and the company executives to assess their export competitiveness in the WFI. Thus, they can determine whether to shift scarce resources to this industry or other industries. In addition, this study may affect the price competition policy of the sector representatives in the global market.

This study deals with the competitiveness of the WFI with different approaches. And this study determines the importance of price for global competition in this sector.

This study aims to (1) identify the agricultural competitiveness of ASEAN countries in the global markets; (2) analyze the dynamics of these indicators for the period 1997–2015; and (3) test the consistency between trade indices.

The study uses RCA, RTA, and NRCA for the first objective; OLS method and Markov matrix for the second objective; and statistic tool for the final purpose.

The results show that: (1) ASEAN countries achieve the strongest competitiveness in rice, rubber, spices, vegetable fat and oils, wood, fuel wood, fish, and crustacean. Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia are the strongest competitive whilst Brunei, Singapore, and Cambodia are the weakest competitive; (2) They have convergent patterns in agricultural competitiveness; (3) They successfully maintain rankings of the strong competitive sectors; and (4) ASEAN countries obtain benefits from the regional integration and the specialization in competitive products.

ASEAN countries with strong competitiveness should specialize in and maintain their rankings to enhance competitiveness and maximize social welfare while the countries with weak agricultural competitiveness should specialize in the processed products and services based on their advantages of economic resources.

Comprehensive results of the static and dynamic agricultural competitiveness of ASEAN countries as a whole are provided. The findings and policy recommendations can be used by policymakers and enterprises to improve competitiveness and benefit. The discussions and findings should be a significant reference for economists.

This paper aims to present structural changes and trade competitiveness in Indian pharmaceutical industry in pre and post product patent regime. The study shows the impact of product patent on market structure, ownership, trade, revealed comparative advantage, R&D and mergers and acquisitions.

The study is based on secondary data and extensive relevant conceptual and empirical literature review.

The study finds that this oligopoly Indian dominant pharmaceutical industry has many challenges ahead such as in R&D expenditure, patent expiration of many major drugs manufactured in Ireland, growing competition in generic global market, bulk drugs dependence on China, rise in the number of M&As, rising costs of new drug discovery and tightening safety and efficacy testing requirements. The smaller firms are likely to act as the contract manufacturers for medium and bigger companies at a lower value chain. The Normalised Revealed Comparative Advantage (NRCA) index was calculated for top exporters of pharmaceutical. It was found that NRCA index of IPI has shown deterioration from 1996 to 2005 and thereafter, improvement except in the year 2009. Switzerland, Belgium and Ireland are the top three countries in NRCA index, which are followed by Germany, the UK and France.

It attempts to capture recent trends in market structure, comparative advantage indices, R&D, trade, M&A and ownership, especially in new IPR regime. There is a dearth of studies providing detailed analyses of India’s comparative advantage vis-a-vis other leading exporters of pharmaceutical products in the world. The paper would be of value to practitioners and scholars interested in structural changes of IPI, especially in product patent regime. The findings have significant implications for managers and government for future policymaking.

This paper aims to examine the competitiveness trends and rankings of the Irish dairy sector at the farm and trade levels, relative to selected European Union (EU) Member States, in the context of the removal of the EU milk quota in 2015.

Competitiveness indicators including partial productivity measures and accountancy-based indicators were used for farm competitiveness, and net export market share and normalised revealed comparative advantage (NRCA) were used for export competitiveness.

Amongst the countries examined, Ireland had the highest growth in partial productivity indicators and was ranked first with the lowest total costs and cash costs per kg of milk solids post-quota. However, the total economic cost sub-components showed that Irish dairy farmers had high opportunity costs for owned land and labour. While Irish dairy products such as butter and powders have demonstrated growth potential in competitiveness post-quota with Irish butter and whey ranked in top three relative to other countries, other products, i.e. cheese and liquid milk have declined in competitiveness according to key export competitiveness indicators used.

The challenge for Irish dairy farmers is how to mitigate relatively high land and labour costs, which can limit farm competitiveness in the long run. The key players in the Irish dairy industry can now better position themselves in the global dairy market, recognizing the competitiveness dynamics of the different dairy products and their competitors. Policy implications and further areas of research have been identified to help improve the overall competitiveness position. It is surprising that Irish butter is a leader in the EU, yet not much research has been done to understand the market dynamics of this sector.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to use both farm and export competitiveness measures to analyse the Irish dairy industry relative to other countries in the context of quota abolition. Unlike previous studies on dairy export competitiveness, this study has disaggregated the processed dairy products, which allowed for the ranking of countries and comparability across countries using NRCA.

This study aims to examine the altering paradigms for two specific characteristics of the international diamond industry: community-based business model and competitive advantage and their impact and interaction effect.

This study uses global value chain (GVC) analysis to understand the industry characteristics, social impacts and disruption in the international diamond industry. Further, normalized revealed comparative advantage is used to measure the competitiveness of different countries over time. Finally, stochastic frontier analysis is used to test the impact of the community-based business model and competitiveness on exports and estimate the technical efficiency.

The international diamond industry is witnessing changes in the business model, competitiveness, processes, policies and consumer behavior. While competitive advantage and community have a positive impact on exports, the relationship between competitive advantage and exports gets negatively moderated by the community. Further, insights from the GVC analysis indicate that though the industry is facing several disruptions and challenges, it has shown the unique quality of community reconfiguration and relocation.

This paper provides insights into the diamond industry facing multiple disruptions at various stages of GVC and contributes to the literature on international trade, community-based business models and GVC.

Comparative advantage is an important indicator in the analysis of international trade flow; however, in empirical studies on agriculture it is often neglected. The purpose of this paper is to analyse global comparative advantage in the European Union (EU) wine industry and to test the duration and stability of trade indices.

The paper applies the theory of comparative advantages by using the Balassa indices to European wine trade (based on the 16 biggest producers) data from the period 2000-2013. Moreover, it applies stability and duration analysis on comparative advantages calculated.

Results suggest that Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain are the highest ranked European wine producers in the world market and have the largest comparative advantages. However, duration and stability tests indicate that trade advantages have weakened for the majority of these countries. The paper discusses a number of reasons for this downturn, including changes to Common Agricultural Policy wine regulation, economic crisis, and the rise of New World wine producers.

The originality of the paper is that it applies the theory of comparative advantage to top wine exporters in the EU. The paper also makes valuable contributions to the wine literature by analysing the duration and stability of comparative advantage in the global wine trade. Moreover, the identification of industry-specific causes for changing patterns in comparative advantage in the EU might be important to the wine industry.

Textile, listed as one of the highly environmentally sensitive goods, its trade is susceptible to be influenced by the implementation of stringent environmental policies. This paper aims to investigate the long-run relationship between revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and Environmental Policy Stringency Index (EPSI) for textile exports of G20 countries in panel data setup.

Apart from trend analysis, the authors have employed Pedroni and Westerlund panel cointegration method and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) method to study the long-run relationship between RCA and EPSI in presence of cross-sectional dependence.

A strong link between trade and environmental stringency is observed for textile in the present study. For G20 countries, slight evidence of the Pollution Haven Hypothesis has also been witnessed in the study. Correspondingly, the results reveal the presence of long-run association between the variables under study, implying that stringent environmental policies reduce RCA for some countries, whereas some countries witness the Porter hypothesis.

The results imply that policy formulation should not aim at limiting the efforts of connecting RCA to environmental stringency but to set trade policies in a wider framework, considering environmental concerns, as these are inseparable subjects. However, this study also provides relevant real-world implications that can support further research.

The present study has important implications for textile exporters such as green innovations. The Porter hypothesis can be a beneficial tool for G20 exporters in enhancing their export performance, especially for the ones dealing in environmentally sensitive goods. This study offers relevant policy implications and provides directions for future research on global trade and environment nexus.

This study deals in a debatable area of research that evaluates the interlinkages between environmental stringency and global trade flows in the G20 countries. An important observation of the study is the asymmetrical nature of policy stringency across different countries and its impact on trade. The unavailability of updated data is the limitation of the present study.