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Revealed Comparative Advantage Index / Balassa Index

Source: R/rca.R
RCA.Rd

Compute the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index (Balassa 1965) for a given dataset.

Usage

rca(
  data,
  binary = TRUE,
  threshold = 1,
  econ = "economy",
  prod = "product",
  exp = "export"
)

Arguments

data

A data frame or matrix containing the data.

  • If a data frame, it should have columns representing economies, products, and export values.

  • If a matrix, it should be an economy-by-product matrix with export values.

binary

A boolean (default = TRUE) specifying whether to return binary RCA values (1 if RCA >= threshold, 0 otherwise).

threshold

A numeric value (default = 1) specifying the threshold for binary RCA values.

econ

A character string (default = "economy") specifying the column name for economies when data is a data frame.

prod

A character string (default = "product") specifying the column name for products when data is a data frame.

exp

A character string (default = "export") specifying the column name for export values when data is a data frame.

Value

An economy-by-product matrix with the RCA values.

References

Balassa B (1965). “Trade Liberalisation and “Revealed” Comparative Advantage.” The Manchester School, 33(2), 99–123. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9957.1965.tb00050.x .