The effect of internationalisation on the beef and maize sub-sectors: The relevance of revealed comparative advantage measures

Andre Jooste and Sirak Teclemariam Bahta

Agrekon, 2005, vol. 44, issue 4, 13

Abstract: According to the RCA and RCA# the beef sub-sector in South Africa has shown a revealed comparative disadvantage for 17 out of the 22 years to 2002, while the maize sub-sector showed a revealed comparative advantage for 18 out of the same 22 years. However, this article argues that these results do not show the real state of competitiveness that exists in these sub-sectors, mainly because RCA measures should not be used to make definitive conclusions whether an industry, sector or sub-sector is competitive, nor whether it uses scare resources efficiently. RCA measures explain in more accurate ways, relative to a simple analysis of export trends, how a country features in the context of world trade. Hence, one possible application of RCA measures is to deduce the impact of changes in trade policies on an industry, sector or sub-sector. Cognisance should also be taken that the RCA measures fail to distinguish between a region's factor endowments. Finally, it appears as if both the beef and maize sub-sectors have adjusted favourably since the implementation of the Marrakech agreement and subsequent deregulation of the domestic market. Favourably in this context means that both sub-sectors appear to have discounted the changing trade and regulatory environments into their respective supply chains. The question of how competitive these sub-sectors are relative to their international counterparts however remains unanswered, and will require a more in-depth analysis of the complete chains for these sub-sectors.

Keywords: International; Relations/Trade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/31703/files/44040452.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:agreko:31703

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.31703

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Agrekon from Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().