Botswana’s revealed comparative advantage

Makochekanwa, Albert (2007): Botswana’s revealed comparative advantage.

Abstract

Analysis of Botswana’s competitiveness in world trade has been presented based on indices of revealed comparative advantage (RCA) calculated for the period 1999 and 2004. Results show that Botswana has RCA in diamonds, copper matte, and meat of bovine animals, among other products. Changes in values of RCA over time reinforce the dynamic nature of comparative advantage. The study established that the country gained comparative specialization in the following products: sugar products; copper ores and concentrates, in which it previously had comparative disadvantage. On the downward side, the country lost specialization in products such as coal gas and water gas.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Africa, Botswana, exports, revealed comparative advantage, revealed comparative disadvantage
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F11 - Neoclassical Models of Trade

References

Balassa, B.: Trade liberalisation and "revealed" comparative advantage. Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies 33, 99-123, 1965.

Balassa, B.: "Revealed" comparative advantage revisited: an analysis of relative export shares of the industrial countries, 1953-1971. Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies 45, 327-344, 1977.

Batra Amita and Zeba Khan. 2005. Revealed Comparative Advantage: An analysis for India and China. Working Paper no. 168, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER)

Bender Siegfried and Dr. Kui-Wai Li. 2002. The Changing Trade and Revealed Comparative Advantages of Asian and Latin American Manufacture Exports. Economic Growth Center Yale University. Paper Series is located at: http://www.econ.yale.edu/~egcenter/research.htm

Carl Hamilton; and Lars E. O. Svensson. 1984. Potential and Realized Trade Patterns: The Case of Sweden.The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Vol. 86, No. 3. (Sep., 1984), pp. 371-378.

Deardorff, A. V.: The general validity of the law of comparative advantage. Journal Political Economy 88, 941-957, 1980.

Deardorff, A. V.: Testing trade theories and predicting trade flows. In R. W. Jones and P. B. Kenen (eds.), Handbook of lnternational Economics, Vol. I . ch. 10. North-Holland. Amsterdam, 1984.

Dixit, A. K. & Norman, V.: Theory of international trade. Nisbet and Cambridge U.P.Cambridge, 1980.

Dixit, A. K. & Woodland, A. D.: The relationship between factor endowments and commodity trade. Journal of International Economics 13. 201-214. 1982.

Donges. J . B. & Riedel, J.: The expansion of manufactured exports in developing countries: an empirical assessment of supply and demand issues. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 113. 58-87. 1977.

Barry Frank and Aoife Hannan. 2001. FDI and the Predictive Powers of Revealed Comparative Advantage Indicators. Department of Economics and Institute for the Study of Social Change University College Dublin

Fertő Imre and Lionel J. Hubbard. 2002. Revealed comparative advantage and competitiveness in Hungarian agri-food sectors. Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Discussion Papers new series, MT–DP

Helpman, E.: The factor content of foreign trade. Economic Journal 94. 84-94, 1984.

Hillman, A. L.: Observations on the relation between "Revealed Comparative Advantage"and comparative advantage as indicated by pre-trade relative prices. Weltwirtschoftliches Archiv 116. 315-321. 1980.

Hirsch, S.: Capital or technology? Confronting the neo-factor proportions and neo-technology accounts of international trade. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 110, 535-563, 1974.

Mika Widgrén. 2005. Revealed Comparative Advantage in the Internal Market Turku School of Economics, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA), CEPR and CESifo