Return to search

Stuck in the middle? The structure of trade between South Africa and its major trading partners.

This paper analyses the South African trade data from1992 until 2006 by means of a Grubel-Lloyd index, a measurement of marginal intra-industry trade and a revealed comparative advantage (RCA) indicator. During this period a lot happened that influenced the South African trade policy, e.g. the political transition in 1994, the formation of the World Trade Organisation in 1995, the rise of China as trading power, etc. The purpose is not only to analyse the current structure of South African trade, but also to examine its structural change over time. As a result this paper shows that South Africa is principally a supplier of natural resources to both industrialised and emerging economies. With respect to its African neighbours South Africa has a more advantageous trading position. More general this paper shows that an indicator reaches significant different values, if different trading partners or industries are analysed.(author´s abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VIENNA/oai:epub.wu-wien.ac.at:epub-wu-01_cc9
Date January 2007
CreatorsSmet, Koen
PublisherInst. für Volkswirtschaftstheorie und -politik, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business
Source SetsWirtschaftsuniversität Wien
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeWorking Paper, NonPeerReviewed
Formatapplication/pdf
Relationhttp://epub.wu.ac.at/876/

Page generated in 0.0023 seconds