Balance of Comparative Advantages in the Processed Food Sector of the Danube Countries

Svetlana Ignjatijević, Ivan Milojević, Gorica Cvijanović and Mersida Jandrić
Additional contact information
Svetlana Ignjatijević: Faculty of Economics and Engineering Management in Novi Sad, Cvećarska 2, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia
Ivan Milojević: University of Defense, Military Academy, Pavla Jurišića Šturma 33, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Gorica Cvijanović: Faculty of Biopharming, Megatrend University, M. Tita 39, 24300 Bačka Topola, Serbia
Mersida Jandrić: Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, Nemanjina 6, 11080 Belgrade-Zemun, Serbia

Sustainability, 2015, vol. 7, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: In this paper, we investigated the level of competitiveness of the processed food sector of the Danube region countries, in order to show the existence of comparative advantage and the correlation of exports. We used the Balassa (RCA–revealed comparative advantage) index and TPI (trade performance indexes). At first, using the Pearson and Spearman index, we examined the existence of correlations between the processed food sector of the Danube countries. Then, we applied the Least Significant Difference (LSD) test to further compare the value and answered the question: between which Danube countries are there significant differences? With the study, we found that the distribution of the RCA index in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Moldova and Slovenia deviates from normality. We also found the existence of a strong correlation of the RCA index of the Czech Republic with Romania, Hungary with Moldova and Serbia, Moldova with Serbia and Bulgaria with Ukraine. Finally, we concluded that the development of trade in the countries of the Danube region requires the participation of all relevant interest groups and could play an important role in providing faster economic development, that is in achieving sustainable development of the countries, with the sustainable use of available resources.

Keywords: balance; processed food sector; Danube region countries; comparative advantages and competitiveness; sustainable development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/6/6976/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/6/6976/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:7:y:2015:i:6:p:6976-6993:d:50437

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().