COMPETITIVENESS IN GLOBAL AGRI-FOOD TRADE: THE CASE OF PEANUTS

Attila Jambor, Alieu Gibba

Abstract: Since the prominent work of Balassa, a vast amount of literature is dedicated to the analyses of revealed comparative advantages of global trade, while comparative advantages in the peanut industry are scarcely investigated. The aim of our paper is to analyse the revealed comparative advantages of global peanut trade as well as the duration and stability of Balassa indices by applying Markov transition probability matrices and Kaplan-Meier survival function. The source of data is global peanut exports at HS6 level for 1996-2015. Results suggest that India, China and Argentina are the biggest exporters of peanuts, dominated by the unroasted shelled type, in the world. The Balassa indices, however, were the highest for Senegal, Nicaragua and Argentina in the period analysed. Advantages, in general, seem to have weakened for a majority of the countries as evidence from mobility indices as well as from the stability tests.

Keywords: duration; peanut; revealed comparative advantage; stability; trade

Date published: 2017-04-28