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Comparative Advantage, the Rank-size Rule, and Zipf's Law

Author

Listed:
  • Jeroen Hinloopen

    (Universiteit van Amsterdam)

  • Charles van Marrewijk

    (Erasmus Universiteit 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeroen Hinloopen & Charles van Marrewijk, 2006. "Comparative Advantage, the Rank-size Rule, and Zipf's Law," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-100/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20060100
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    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/06100.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Shang-Jin Wei, 1998. "Regionalization of World Trade and Currencies: Economics and Politics," NBER Chapters, in: The Regionalization of the World Economy, pages 189-226, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    3. Simon J. Evenett & Wolfgang Keller, 2002. "On Theories Explaining the Success of the Gravity Equation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 281-316, April.
    4. Gabaix, Xavier & Ioannides, Yannis M., 2004. "The evolution of city size distributions," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 53, pages 2341-2378, Elsevier.
    5. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1998. "Introduction to "Regionalization of the World Economy, The"," NBER Chapters, in: The Regionalization of the World Economy, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Xavier Gabaix & Rustam Ibragimov, 2011. "Rank - 1 / 2: A Simple Way to Improve the OLS Estimation of Tail Exponents," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 24-39, January.
    7. Imre Fertö & L. J. Hubbard, 2003. "Revealed Comparative Advantage and Competitiveness in Hungarian Agri–Food Sectors," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 247-259, February.
    8. Duncan Black & Vernon Henderson, 2003. "Urban evolution in the USA," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 343-372, October.
    9. Arye Hillman, 1980. "Observations on the relation between “revealed comparative advantage” and comparative advantage as indicated by pre-trade relative prices," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 116(2), pages 315-321, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Durgesh Nandini & Simon Bloethner & Mirco Schoenfeld & Mario Larch, 2024. "Multidimensional Knowledge Graph Embeddings for International Trade Flow Analysis," Papers 2410.19835, arXiv.org.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Revealed comparative advantage; Balassa index; rank-size rule; Zipf’s Law; power law; Pareto distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • O5 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

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