Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/86229 
Year of Publication: 
2006
Series/Report no.: 
Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper No. 06-100/1
Publisher: 
Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam and Rotterdam
Abstract: 
Using a comprehensive international trade data set we investigate empirical regularities (known as Zipf’s Law or the rank-size rule) for the distribution of the interaction between countries as measured by revealed comparative advantage. Using the recently developed estimator by Gabaix and Ibragimov (2006) we find strong evidence in favor of the rank-size rule along the time, country, and sector dimension for three different levels of data aggregation. The estimated power exponents that characterize the distribution of revealed comparative advantage are stable over time but differ between countries and sectors. These differences are related empirically to country and sector characteristics, including population size, GDP, and factor intensities.
Subjects: 
Revealed comparative advantage
Balassa index
rank-size rule
Zipf’s Law
power law
Pareto distribution
JEL: 
C13
C33
F1
L1
O5
R12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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