Title: Revealed comparative advantage in Greek, post-crisis, agri-food trade

Authors: Petros Gkizlis; Dimitrios Dadakas; Alexandros Tsioutsios

Addresses: Department of Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece ' Department of Economics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece ' Department of Economics and UoA Center for Financial Studies, School of Economics and Political Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Abstract: We examine the competitiveness of Greek agri-food exports during the Greek debt crisis. We employ the Balassa revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index and the Vollrath revealed competitiveness (RC) index. Changes in RCA and RC trends together with panel vector autoregression analysis (PVAR), allow us to discuss the dynamic relation of competitiveness and GDP and infer on policies to strengthen Greek agri-food trade. Results show that Greece has a revealed comparative advantage in many agri-food product categories, however, the 2009 debt crisis led to significant losses in competitiveness. Economic policy should target vegetable and foodstuff products to ensure quick recovery of competitiveness in the international markets.

Keywords: international trade; competitiveness; revealed comparative advantage; RCA; Balassa index; Vollrath index; Greece.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCEE.2026.151013

International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics, 2026 Vol.16 No.1/2, pp.160 - 186

Accepted: 22 Aug 2025
Published online: 08 Jan 2026 *

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