Agricultural Compettiveness in an Interdependent World

The concept of competitvvness and its measurement are cast within a general equilibrium interdependent framework that juxtaposes home country with rest-of-the-world trade behaviour. The quanititative index constructed here, called "revealed competitiveness," is a useful indicator that can be readily applied to any aggregate commodity or specific sector. Here it is applied to total agricultre. Econometric analysis is used to identify the importance of government intervention and real economic factors affecting global agricultural competitiveness. Time-series and cross-section data covering 78 countries during 16- to 26-year periods provided the empirical basis for this study