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"COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE"
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Trade costs and inclusive growth : case studies presented by WTO chair-holders
\"Trade costs and inclusive growth looks at how implementation of the WTO's Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) can help to reduce trade costs and promote growth. The publication brings together contributions from ten participants in the WTO Chairs Programme, which supports trade-related activities by academic institutions in developing countries. The book looks into how the Aid for Trade initiative can assist with implementing the TFA, the importance of mainstreaming trade into national development strategies, and the potential impact of the TFA in various regions\"--Publisher's description.
Book
Fragmentation, incomes and jobs: an analysis of European competitiveness
Increasing fragmentation of production across borders is changing the nature of international competition. As a result, conventional indicators of competitiveness based on gross exports become less informative and new measures are needed. In this paper we propose a new concept based on the value added that countries contribute to the production of final manufacturing goods, called 'global value chain (GVC) income'. We develop an ex-post accounting framework to measure this and provide trends for European countries based on a recent multi-sector input–output model of the world economy. We find that gross exports overestimate the competitiveness of economies that rely heavily on imported intermediates, and this bias has increased over time. Based on GVC incomes, we find that revealed comparative advantage of the EU27 is shifting to activities related to the production of non-electrical machinery and transport equipment, and away from non-durables. We also find that the number of jobs involved (GVC jobs) is declining and increasingly carried out by high-skilled workers outside the manufacturing sector, highlighting the uneven distributional consequences of production fragmentation. The results show that a GVC perspective on competitiveness is needed to better inform the policy debates on globalization.
Journal Article
Corporations and NGOs: When Accountability Leads to Co-optation
Interactions between corporations and nonprofits are on the rise, frequently driven by a corporate interest in establishing credentials for corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this article, we show how increasing demands for accountability directed at both businesses and NGOs can have the unintended effect of compromising the autonomy of nonprofits and fostering their co-optation. Greater scrutiny of NGO spending driven by self-appointed watchdogs of the nonprofit sector and a prevalence of strategic notions of CSR advanced by corporate actors weaken the ability of civil society actors to change the business practices of their partners in the commercial sector. To counter this trend, we argue that corporations should embrace a political notion of CSR and should actively encourage NGOs to strengthen \"downward accountability\" mechanisms, even if this creates more tensions in corporate-NGO partnerships. Rather than seeing NGOs as tools in a competition for a comparative advantage in the market place, corporations should actively support NGO independence and critical capacity.
Journal Article
Promoting regional growth and innovation
We adapt the product-space approach of Hausmann–Hidalgo et al. to the case of Italian provinces, examining the extent to which network connectedness and centrality of a province’s exports is related to its economic performance. We construct a new Product Space Position (PSP) index which retains many of the Hausmann–Hidalgo et al. features but which is also much better suited to handling regional and provincial data. The PSP index is found to outperform other indices. Our comparison throws light on fundamental aspects of network-cognitive-distance-trade arguments. A better positioning in the export-network product space is indeed associated with better local economic outcomes.
Journal Article
Factors affecting merchants' acceptance of P2P m-payments: a multigroup moderating effect of gender, age, and experience
PurposeThis paper hypothesized that perceived relative advantage and perceived compatibility would have a positive effect on merchants' intention to accept payments via P2P mobile payment services, while perceived financial risks and perceived costs would have a negative effect. The study also explored the differences in gender, age and experience.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed model is based on the valence framework, where positive utility is represented by relative advantage and perceived compatibility, while negative utility is represented by perceived risks and perceived costs. The data for this study were collected from small business owners (merchants) at the largest public market in the Center Department of Mirebalais, Haiti, using a purposive sampling method.FindingsThe results of a structural equation modeling on a sample of 339 merchants only confirmed the effect of both perceived comparative advantage and perceived compatibility. Furthermore, the multigroup analysis revealed that the perceived comparative advantage is stronger for female merchants, older age groups and merchants who frequently used P2P m-payment for the transfer of remittances. Perceived compatibility is stronger for male merchants, younger age groups and merchants who occasionally used P2P m-payment for the transfer of remittances.Originality/valueThis study was conducted in the economic context of Haiti, where P2P m-payments are commonly used for transferring remittances. Since there are limited studies that examine P2P m-payment acceptance from the perspective of merchants, this study offers valuable insights.
Journal Article
The Importance of Global Value Chains in Developing Countries’ Agricultural Trade Development
The role of global value-added chains is growing in international trade. The development gap between highly developed economies and developing countries means that the only products with which less developed economies can compete on the international arena are agricultural products. Moreover, integration into global value-added chains is an important factor in achieving comparative advantages in trade and improving export competitiveness. The main aim of this article is to assess the impact of integration within global value chains on changes in the comparative advantage of developing countries in the global agricultural trade. The degree of participation of developing countries in global value chains (GVC) was assessed using data from the Trade in Value-added OECD–WTO database (November 2021 edition) by calculating domestic (DVA), foreign value-added (FVA), and revealed comparative advantage (RCA) indexes. The analysis covers the period 1995–2018 and 28 developing economies. The research showed that the foreign value added in the gross exports of agricultural commodities of developing countries was an important factor in strengthening their export position and the importance of integration within global value chains rises with increasing product complexity. In agricultural production, FVA in most developing countries does not have a significant impact on the shaping of the comparative advantage.
Journal Article
Determinants of Patent Activity and the Formation of Comparative Advantages in Selected European Economies
This paper examines the relationship between innovation performance and international export competitiveness in four EU countries—Germany, Italy, Czechia, and Slovakia—during the period 2015–2024. The primary objective is to identify the relationship between the number of patent applications to the European Patent Office (EPO) and two key R&D input indicators: R&D expenditure per capita and the number of researchers and engineers per million inhabitants. Simultaneously, the study utilizes the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index to evaluate export specialization in medium-to-high innovation-intensive commodity groups. Although there are numerous studies on innovation, patents, or the significance of research and development, only rarely are these indicators linked to the competitiveness of countries according to comparative advantages in individual sectors. The results of the correlation analysis reveal significant national disparities: while a strong dependency was confirmed in Italy and Slovakia, the findings for Germany show a negative correlation, suggesting that German patenting activity is driven by factors beyond the examined R&D inputs. Panel regression also points out that simple correlation may not be able to clearly capture this relationship, as it may manifest itself with a time lag. From an absolute perspective, Germany maintains a leading position in all indicators, yet Italy demonstrates higher patent efficiency compared to Czechia despite having fewer researchers. The RCA analysis further highlights that while Germany and Italy maintain comparative advantages in high-innovation sectors, Czechia and Slovakia predominantly specialize in medium-innovation-intensive industries.
Journal Article
Revealed comparative advantage and the alternatives as measures of international specialization
This paper provides an analysis of Balassa's 'revealed comparative advantage' (RCA). It shows that when using RCA, it should be adjusted such that it becomes symmetric around its neutral value. The proposed adjusted index is called 'revealed symmetric comparative advantage' (RSCA). The theoretical discussion focuses on the properties of RSCA and empirical evidence, based on the Jarque-Bera test for normality of the regression error terms, using both the RCA and RSCA indices. We compare RSCA to other measures of international trade specialization including the Michaely index, the Contribution to Trade Balance, Chi Square, and Bowen's Net Trade Index. The result of the analysis is that RSCA--on balance--is the best measure of comparative advantage.
Journal Article
Domestic formal and informal institutions: their substitutability and comparative advantage
This paper empirically examines how country-specific formal and informal institutions affect export patterns. The index for formal institutional quality evaluates electoral rules, judicial independence, and other constraints on executives. The index for informal institutional quality comprises degrees of trust, control, and obedience. Using the revealed comparative advantage index, I find that countries with high-quality formal and informal institutions tend to have institutional comparative advantage. Results also suggest that formal and informal institutions substitute for one another in generating institutional quality. I find robust results even when controlling for an important potential source of reverse causality.
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