Explaining evolving outliers for uncovering key aspects of the green comparative advantage

This objective of tis research was to: 1) Determine whether the Central Lampung District has a comparative advantage and competitive advantage in rice production. 2) Determine how the sensitivity of changes in output prices and input prices to the comparative and competitive advantage in rice production. Location of the study was conducted at the Rama Utama Village and Ramayana Village, Seputih Raman Subdistrict of Central Lampung District. This research was conducted by survey and interview methods to farmers by using a questionnaire that had been prepared. Respondents in this research is rice farmer in the Seputih Raman subdistrict of Central Lampung District, totally 73 farmers were selected by simple random sampling method (simple random sampling). Types of data used are primary and secondary data obtained through direct interviews and offices or agencies. To answer the first objective analysis was used Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) and to answer the second objective was used sensitivity analysis. Results showed that: 1) rice farming in Central Lampung District has a comparative advantage and competitive advantage with a value of PCR (Private Cost Ratio) equal to 0.4635 and the value of the DRC (Domestic Resource Cost) of 0.4368 so that feasible and profitable to be conducted. 2) comparative and competitive advantage of rice production in Central Lampung District is sensitive to changes in output prices. Increase or decrease of output prices will affect the comparative and competitive advantage of of rice production in Central Lampung District. Keywords: Comparative Advantage, Competitive, Paddy Production

Given the growing prominence of Vietnam's fishery products in the world market, this study examines data on shrimp aquaculture in the country, as practiced through intensive and semi-intensive methods, in two provinces in the Mekong River Delta region. The study estimates the comparative and competitive advantage of the shrimp industry using various approaches, namely: 1) the RCA or revealed comparative advantage; 2). the Policy Analysis Method (PAM) method to calculate the resource cost ratio (RCR) and RCR* indices; and 3) the Net Social Profitability (NSP) and Net Private Profitability (NPP). To identify the effects of changes in key factors affecting competitive and comparative advantage, a sensitivity analysis is conducted. The results show that Vietnam's shrimp products maintain a strong competitive position in the world market, as evidenced by an RCA greater than 1. The RCR and RCR* estimates bordering on zero also indicate the strong comparative and competitive advantage of the shrimp industry. These findings are bolstered as well by the resulting NSP and NPP estimates. Furthermore, in terms of farming methods, the lower RCR and RCR* estimates for the intensive farms confirm their higher comparative and competitive advantage, compared to the semi-intensive model. Finally, the sensitivity analysis shows that the comparative and competitive advantage of shrimp is strongly sensitive to the price of feed, exchange rate, shrimp yield, and export price. The wage rate also exhibits a slight effect on the industry's standing in the world market. Improving the productivity and quality of shrimp is shown to be vital to the MRD shrimp industry because this would translate into a higher export price and higher yield of shrimp, which will further enhance the industry's comparative and competitive advantage.

Tomato commodity ranks fifth regarding vegetable export volume and value in Indonesia. The main issues with tomato production in Indonesia are seemingly its lack of variations, quantity, quality, and supply continuity. This study aimed to analyze the comparative and the competitive advantages of tomato farming, evaluate the government policy on inputs, outputs, and input-output sectors, and formulate strategic for transforming the comparative advantage into a competitive advantage. Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) and sensitivity analysis were employed as the method with the 75 farmers as the respondents and their Focus Group Discussion (FGD) involving farmer groups, agricultural extension workers, traders, and the Agricultural Service Offices in the respective regencies. The results showed that tomato farming has both its comparative and competitive advantages. Its comparative advantage was higher than its competitive advantage in both dry and wet seasons. In general, tomato farming’s comparative and competitive advantages outside Java were higher than those in Java. Meanwhile, the divergence effects of tomato agribusiness were more beneficial to consumers than producers. It indicates that improving domestic tomato production was more profitable for Indonesia than importing this commodity in terms of domestic resource use. The sensitivity analysis shows that tomato farming was relatively stable regarding productivity and price changes. The suggested strategic policies to apply are transforming tomato farming’s comparative advantage into competitive advantage through productivity enhancement, improvement of distribution efficiency, less market distortion, and government incentives.

Celem badań było określenie pozycji konkurencyjnej Polski na rynku zagęszczonego soku jabłkowego w latach 2004–2015. W badaniu wykorzystano: saldo obrotów, udział w światowym eksporcie, wskaźnik ujawnionej przewagi komparatywnej (RCA) oraz indeks relatywnej komparatywnej przewagi eksportu (XRCA). Zastosowane mierniki wykazały, że eksport z Polski był konkurencyjny. Saldo handlu zagęszczonym sokiem jabłkowym w latach 2004–2015 wzrosło. W badanym okresie zwiększył się też udział Polski w światowym eksporcie soku. W latach 2004–2015 Polska miała przeciętną i silną przewagę komparatywną w eksporcie zagęszczonego soku jabłkowego, a Chiny silną. Najsilniejszą przewagę komparatywną w latach 2013–2015 uzyskały Mołdawia i Ukraina.

Tomato commodity ranks fifth regarding vegetable export volume and value in Indonesia. The main issues with tomato production in Indonesia are seemingly its lack of variations, quantity, quality, and supply continuity. This study aimed to analyze the comparative and the competitive advantages of tomato farming, evaluate the government policy on inputs, outputs, and input-output sectors, and formulate strategic for transforming the comparative advantage into a competitive advantage. Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) and sensitivity analysis were employed as the method with the 75 farmers as the respondents and their Focus Group Discussion (FGD) involving farmer groups, agricultural extension workers, traders, and the Agricultural Service Offices in the respective regencies. The results showed that tomato farming has both its comparative and competitive advantages. Its comparative advantage was higher than its competitive advantage in both dry and wet seasons. In general, tomato farming's comparative and competitive advantages outside Java were higher than those in Java. Meanwhile, the divergence effects of tomato agribusiness were more beneficial to consumers than producers. It indicates that improving domestic tomato production was more profitable for Indonesia than importing this commodity in terms of domestic resource use. The sensitivity analysis shows that tomato farming was relatively stable regarding productivity and price changes. The suggested strategic policies to apply are transforming tomato farming's comparative advantage into competitive advantage through productivity enhancement, improvement of distribution efficiency, less market distortion, and government incentives.

Comparative cost advantage can have an important role in determining the composition of trade flows between two countries. Identification of industries that have a comparative advantage is useful for analyzing the costs and benefits of manufacturing industries in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. This article investigates the comparative cost advantage of manufacturing industries in Mexico, Canada, and the United States. The first part develops a framework for analyzing comparative advantage between two countries. The second part derives an internal ranking of 28 manufacturing industries and eight subsectors by relative unit labor costs and computes a measure of their comparative advantage. The industries with a clear comparative advantage are discussed. The final section draws possible policy implications.

Research background: Globalisation and economic integration are the reasons for which the competitiveness of economic entities is analysed more and more often in the context of their relations with the international market. One of the ways to assess the competitiveness of the Polish food sector is an analysis of comparative (relative) advantages in the export of this sector’s products.
 Purpose of the article: The objective of this paper is to assess comparative advantages in Polish export of food products to the European Union against a background of selected groups of non-food products.
 Methods: The study used the B. Balassa’s revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index. The study is preceded by a brief review of foreign trade results. The source of data was the WITS-Comtrade commercial database. The analysis was carried out at the level of the HS sections (in commodity terms). The research period covered the years 2003–2015.
 Findings & Value added: In the years 2003–2015, export of food increased nearly six times and its import — more than 4.5 times. The major partners of Poland as regards trade in food were the EU countries. The food sector was one of few sectors of the economy with the positive trade balance. Polish export to the EU was characterised by a diversified level of comparative advantages. From among 20 HS sections, in 2015 Poland had comparative advantages in export to the EU countries for products from 10 sections (2 food and 8 non-food). Those products accounted for 11% and 70% of Polish export to the EU, respectively. The development of Polish foreign trade in food products during the Polish membership in the EU as well as fairly high comparative advantages in the export of these products to the EU indicate the competitiveness and significant importance of the Polish food sector for the national economy.

Research background: Globalisation and economic integration are the reasons for which the competitiveness of economic entities is analysed more and more often in the context of their relations with the international market. One of the ways to assess the competitiveness of the Polish food sector is an analysis of comparative (relative) advantages in the export of this sector?s products.
 Purpose of the article: The objective of this paper is to assess comparative advantages in Polish export of food products to the European Union against a background of selected groups of non-food products.
 Methods: The study used the B. Balassa?s revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index. The study is preceded by a brief review of foreign trade results. The source of data was the WITS-Comtrade commercial database. The analysis was carried out at the level of the HS sections (in commodity terms). The research period covered the years 2003?2015.
 Findings & Value added: In the years 2003?2015, export of food increased nearly six times and its import ? more than 4.5 times. The major partners of Poland as regards trade in food were the EU countries. The food sector was one of few sectors of the economy with the positive trade balance. Polish export to the EU was characterised by a diversified level of comparative advantages. From among 20 HS sections, in 2015 Poland had comparative advantages in export to the EU countries for products from 10 sections (2 food and 8 non-food). Those products accounted for 11% and 70% of Polish export to the EU, respectively. The development of Polish foreign trade in food products during the Polish membership in the EU as well as fairly high comparative advantages in the export of these products to the EU indicate the competitiveness and significant importance of the Polish food sector for the national economy.

Why are females compared to males both more likely to have strong STEM-related performance and less likely to study STEM later on? We exploit random assignment of students to classrooms in Greece to identify the impact of comparative advantage in STEM relative to non-STEM subjects on STEM specialization decisions. We approximate comparative STEM advantage using the within-classroom ranking of the ratio of early-high school performance in STEM over non-STEM subjects. We find that females who are assigned to classroom peers among which they have a higher comparative STEM advantage are more likely to choose a STEM school track and apply to a STEM degree. Comparative STEM advantage appears irrelevant for males. Our results suggest that comparative STEM advantage explains at least 12% of the under-representation of qualified females in the earliest instance of STEM specialization. We discuss the mechanisms that amplify the role of comparative STEM advantage in STEM study.

The objective of this research is to analyze competitiveness of Indonesia pulp and paper products, particularly chemical wood pulp, newsprint, printing-writing paper and other paper-paperboard products in international market in the period 2002-2011. The Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and the Trade Specialization Index (TSI) were then calculated to determine comparative and competitive advantages, respectively. In addition, the Constant Market Share (CMS) technique was also used to identify factors that affect competitiveness of those products. The results show printing-writing paper and chemical wood pulp had an extremely strong comparative advantage (RCA index > 2,50), newsprint a moderate to strong comparative advantage (0,89 < RCA index ≤ 1,70), and other paper-paperboard a weak comparative advantage (0,63 < indeks RCA ≤ 0,92). Further, TSI indicated newsprint (0,84 ≤ TSI ≤ 0,99) and printing-writing paper (0,84 ≤ TSI ≤ 0,93) were in a maturation stage, chemical wood pulp in an export expansion stage (0,39 ≤ TSI ≤ 0,58) and other paper-paperboard in an import substitution stage (-0,14 ≤ TSI ≤ 0,16). In order of importance, world market growth, competitiveness, and product composition were the influential factors that affect Indonesia’s pulp and paper products competitiveness. Keywords: pulp and paper, competitiveness, revealed comparative advantage, trade specialization index, constant market share

The Comparative and Competitive Advantages of Arabica Coffee (Coffea arabica) Commodity in Ulian Village, Kintamani Sub-District of Bangli Regency&#x0D; The study aimed to analyze the comparative and competitive advantages and the divergence of input and output of arabica coffee commodity, to find out the government protection policy against inputs and outputs; and to investigate the impact of changes in input and output prices on profits, comparative advantages, competitive advantages, divergence, and government protection against inputs and outputs. Methods of data collection was interview and observation. The respondents were 38 farmers in Ulian Village, Kintamani, Bangli and selected by random sampling. Data analysis used Policy Analysis Matrix and sensitivity analysis. The result of analysis by using Policy Analysis Matrix showed that the social profit was Rp 47.953.373 and private profit of Rp 33.202.446. The superiority of arabica coffee commodity in Ulian Village consists of comparative and competitive advantages expressed in DRC ratio of 0.23 and PCR ratio of 0.29. The divergence of input and output consists of divergence of revenue of Rp15,734,996, tradable input divergence was Rp 0, domestic factor divergence was Rp. 994,070, and divergence of net profit of Rp 14,750,927. Government protection was expressed in NPCO ratio of 0.75, EPC ratio of 0.75, PC ratio of 0.69, and SRP ratio of -0.24. These ratios indicate that arabica coffee farmers in Ulian Village, Kintamani, Bangli have no protection from the government. Changes in input and output prices during inflation were at 3.02 percent, an increase in input prices by 10 percent and a fall in the price of output by 50 percent resulted in arabica coffee commodities in Ulian Village, Kintamani, Bangli to have comparative and competitive advantages. There is no government protection on arabica coffee farmers in Ulian Village, Kintamani Sub-District of Bangli Regency when input and output prices changed.

In the last decades Brazil has become a global agri-food powerhouse. The article interrogates the shape and its stability of revealed comparative advantages in 46 of its agri-food products for the period 1995-2017. The results support the argument that the Brazil's agri-food trade was formed by comparative advantages of specific agri-food sectors. The results show that the external shape of agri-food specialization has strengthened, first since early 2000s and second when the trade shifted more towards China. The pattern was stable according revealed comparative (dis)advantage of particular products, more changes occurred in each product's score and in ranking of products. Products without initial comparative advantage seem to remain uncompetitive whilst the products with strong initial comparative advantage continue to be competitive. The persistence in distribution has increased. This suggests, the shape of Brazil's revealed comparative advantage in agri-food trade has evolved towards its finite structure (ceteris paribus).

Limited research is available to investigate revealed comparative advantages in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (Bojnec, 2001; Fertő and Hubbard, 2003). Similarly, research on competitiveness of agriculture in CEE countries employing trade data is also scarce. Both of the analyses are particularly relevant for the new European Union (EU) member countries, which during the last fifteen years have undergone transition from central planning to a market economy and rapid adjustments to the EU membership. While one might expect that trade opening, free trade and association agreements, and the EU membership have induced substantial changes in structures of agro-food trade flows, there is limited evidence on the magnitude and patterns in comparative trade advantages potentially caused by these processes. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigates comparative trade advantages/disadvantages in agro-food trade of five new members of the EU from Central Europe (CE-5) (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia), and the selected Balkans’ countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania) with the EU members employing comparative trade advantage measures. Thus, we apply in practical empirical work recent theoretical and methodological developments in international trade with an aim to evaluate agro-food sector comparative trade advantages and their implications for sustainable rural development.

This research aims to analyze the competitiveness (comparative and competitive advantages) of Indonesia's lobster commodity exports. The data used in this research consists of secondary data in the form of panel data obtained from the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries of Indonesia, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Commodity Trade (UN Comtrade), and the International Trade Center (ITC). Comparative advantage is measured using the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index, and competitive advantage is measured using the Export Competitiveness Index (ECI). The findings reveal that Indonesia holds a stronger comparative advantage in lobster exports compared to Vietnam, with an average RCA value of 25.46 for Indonesia and 13.08 for Vietnam. Similarly, Indonesia demonstrates higher competitive advantage, as indicated by an average ECI value of 3.57 compared to Vietnam's 3.28. However, Indonesia's ECI values have shown fluctuations in recent years, highlighting periods of declining competitive advantage due to export policies and international market conditions. The findings provide policymakers with insights to develop balanced policies that ensure both environmental sustainability and economic growth. Additionally, it highlights the critical need for ongoing, granular analysis of export dynamics, particularly in the context of the Southeast Asian market.

This paper reviews the relevance of the concepts of comparative and competitive advantage for the developing countries of the Asian‐Pacific region. It argues that the competitive advantage supporters' attack on the comparative advantage concept rests partly on a misunderstanding of comparative advantage and partly on a false analogy–that between the determinants of the success of a single firm and the success of a nation. The central theme is that for a developing country, as for any other, while competitive advantage may be relevant for the performance of firms, comparative advantage remains as relevant as ever for the performance of the nation.