Complementarities of trade advantage and trade competitiveness measures

Abstract

The complementarities of trade advantage and trade competitiveness measures for agro food trade of five Central European (CE-5) countries with the European Union are analysed. The stability and duration of the trade measures over time is investigated by the survival analysis using the nonparametric Kaplan–Meier product limit estimator, and the consistency test between the trade measures is conducted by the stratified Cox proportional hazard model. The CE-5 countries experienced a greater number of products with relative trade disadvantages and greater significance of one way imports. Unlike the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, Hungary experienced Relative Trade Advantages (RTAs) for bulk raw commodities, processed intermediates and horticulture, with the greatest significance of successful quality competition and one-way exports, and the lowest significance of unsuccessful price and unsuccessful quality competition. The duration of RTAs is longer than the duration for the successful trade competition categories. Our results confirm that the RTA is consistent with the one way export and the successful price and successful quality competition categories in two way trade on one side, and the relative trade disadvantage with the one way import and the unsuccessful price and unsuccessful quality competition on the other.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank an anonymous journal reviewer for providing useful comments and suggestions on the previous version of this article. The authors are grateful for the financial support from the bilateral project between the Hungarian and Slovenian Academies of Sciences entitled ‘Agrifood Trade between Central European Countries and the European Union’. Imre Fertő gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund No. 37868 ‘The International Agricultural Trade: Theory and Practice’.