Title: Revealed comparative advantages and trade balance indicators of trade structure of V4 countries

Authors: Renáta Pitoňáková

Addresses: Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Mlynské luhy 4, 821 05 Bratislava, Slovakia

Abstract: The paper aims to inspect trade structure and changes in comparative advantages of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia on the intra-EU28 market for the period 2009-2019. The categorisation of the products corresponds to the Statistical classification of products by activity (CPA). This paper exploits the modified index of revealed comparative advantages-the revealed symmetric comparative advantages (RSCA) and the trade balance index (TBI). Econometric models using the RSCA were applied for testing stability and specialisation trends of a country's trade. The results show that the Czech Republic and Hungary had the biggest changes in comparative advantages in 2009-2011, Poland and Slovakia in 2011-2015. The findings indicate space for increasing export performance and specialisation of these V4 countries on the intra-EU market in the short and long-run.

Keywords: specialisation; revealed comparative advantages; revealed symmetric comparative advantages; trade balance index; export performance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTGM.2023.130168

International Journal of Trade and Global Markets, 2023 Vol.17 No.1, pp.30 - 50

Received: 16 Mar 2021
Accepted: 20 May 2021
Published online: 05 Apr 2023 *