Journal of Global Economics

Export Performance and Revealed Comparative Advantage of Developing and Developed Economies for Textile Fibers or Fabrics

Abstract

Mulat Alubel Abtew, Annu Kumari and Srinivasa Moorthy

The foremost aim of the present study was to disclose the comparative advantage between developed and developing economies for the years 2006-2015. After careful introspection, among the various indices, Balassa’s Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index was chosen and product commodities with HS code 50-55 were selected for the study to authenticate the compatibility of the textile industry of developing countries. It was found that for HS code 51 (wool, animal hair, horsehair yarn and fabric thereof) developed economies were having higher RCA over developing economies. But for silk, cotton, manmade fibers and filaments, developing economies have favorable conditions for worldwide export. It was observed that in the year 2009, RCA for developing economies was maximum for silk, cotton and manmade fibers /filaments within ten years. RCA values tend to decrease and minimum in the year of 2015 for developed economies for cotton, Vegetable textile fibresnes, paper yarn, woven fabric and manmade fiber/filaments.