Comparative Advantage and Trade Specialization of East Asian Countries: Do East Asian Countries Specialize on Product Groups with High Comparative Advantage?

This paper analyzes whether East Asian countries (Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore) specialize on product groups with high comparative advantage. We use the data on the 3-digit SITC Revision 2 for 237 product groups published by the UN-COMTRADE. Firstly, we calculate the Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) index to know the product groups with high comparative advantage from each the East Asian countries. Secondly, we calculate the export share to know the trade specialization of product groups from each the East Asian countries. Thirdly, we compare between the product groups included in top-twenty SITC of comparative advantage with top-twenty SITC of trade specialization from each the East Asian countries. This paper concludes that throughout the study periods of 1995, 2005, and 2015, East Asian countries (Indonesia, China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore) specialize on product groups with low comparative advantage. It was also found that product classification dominating the comparative advantage and trade specialization of East Asian countries was the technology intensive products classification.