Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

This study applied the indicators of uncertainty on the international trade of agricultural products. Proxies of uncertainty were developed using the long-term variability of two comparative advantage indicators : the Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage index (RSCA) and the Revealed Competitiveness Index (RC). Variability was calculated as the coefficient of variation (CV) for both RSCA and RC indices for Mediterranean basin countries over the period 1982-1997. The cv of RSCA was defined as Revealed Export Uncertainty (RXU) and the CV of RC index was defined Revealed Trade Uncertainty (RTU). Results indicate that, given certain limitations, both RXU and RTU can be used as proxies of uncertainty. Referring to Mediterranean states, RXU and RTU produced striking results of the export performance in contrast to RSCA and RC indices which exhibited low interpretability. Uncertaintyindices appear to better depict the comparative position of Mediterranean basin countries.