Measuring subnational trade competitiveness

Much research has tried to measure the competitiveness of territorial units such as countries and subnational regions. We propose new measures of subnational trade competitiveness that reflect the economic focus of regions on their country’s comparative advantage. Our approach starts with data on the revealed comparative advantage of countries at the industry level. We then combine these measures with data on the employment structure of regions to arrive at measures of subnational trade competitiveness. In total, we offer data for 6,475 regions across 63 countries and over a time period of 21 years. In this paper, we introduce our measures and provide descriptive evidence that shows the plausibility of these measures. We also discuss some of the many research questions that these data can be used to address.

诸多过往研究均致力于衡量国家、次国家区域等领土单元的竞争力水平。本研究提出全新的次国家贸易竞争力衡量指标，该指标可体现区域依托母国比较优势形成的经济发展重心。本研究的分析框架始于各国产业层面的显示性比较优势（revealed comparative advantage）数据，随后将上述指标与区域就业结构数据相结合，最终得到次国家贸易竞争力的衡量结果。整体而言，本数据集涵盖63个国家共计6475个区域的相关数据，时间跨度达21年。本文将介绍所提出的衡量指标，并通过描述性证据验证该指标的合理性，同时探讨该数据集可用于解答的诸多研究议题。