Evaluating the Tourism Competitiveness of Small Island Developing States:

A Revealed Comparative Advantage Approach

(A revised version has been published in Anatolia. Please cite the published version)

By

Mahalia Jackman

Research and Economic Analysis Department, Central Bank of Barbados, St. Michael, Barbados

Email: mahalia.jackman@centralbank.org.bb

Tel: (246) 436-6870

Fax: (246) 427-1431

Troy Lorde

Department of Economics, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados

Email: troy.lorde@cavehill.uwi.edu

Tel: (246) 417-4279

Shane Lowe

Research and Economic Analysis Department, Central Bank of Barbados, St. Michael, Barbados

Email: shane.lowe@centralbank.org.bb

Tel (246) 436-6870

Fax: (246) 427-1431

and

Antonio Alleyne

Research and Planning Unit, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Warrens, St. Michael

Email: alleynear@gob.bb

Tel: (246) 310-1300

1

Evaluating the Tourism Competitiveness of Small Island Developing States:

A Revealed Comparative Advantage Approach

Abstract

This paper analyses the competitiveness of eighteen small island developing states (SIDS) over

the period 2000-2007 employing the technique of revealed comparative advantage. We find that

most SIDS had at the very least a weak comparative advantage on average. Of particular note,

the results indicate that competitiveness in most SIDS increased over the sample period. But, in

spite of their improvements, none of the countries at any point in time displayed a strong

comparative advantage. This would then call for a need for policy makers in SIDS to further

upgrade their tourism products in order to improve competitiveness and sustain tourism.

Keywords: SIDS; tourism competitiveness; revealed comparative advantage

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1. Introduction

The tourism industry is one of the fastest growing worldwide. Estimates from the World

Tourism Organistation (WTO) suggest that over the last five decades, tourism receipts increased

over 30-fold, from a mere USD $2 billion to an impressive USD $919 billion in 2010.

Underpinning the rising receipts has been an increasing number of travellers; advances in

communication and transportation, improved tourism products, as well as the growing number of

international agreements have resulted in a greater movement of people in an increasingly

globalised world. According to the WTO, the number of tourists grew from about 25 million in

1950 to an estimated 940 million in 2010. The increase registered in small island developing

states (SIDS) has been even more dramatic. Craigwell (2007) notes that tourist arrivals to SIDS

grew by 145% between 1988 and 2004, compared to global growth of 98% over the same period.

The importance of tourism SIDS is widely recognised (see for instance Lorde et al, 2010a;

Craigwell 2007). This importance has partially been the result of SIDS’ limited opportunities for

economies of scale within other manufacturing-related industries (see Koonjul, 2004; UNESCO,

2007). Table 1 shows the contribution of tourism to employment and Gross Domestic Product

for a sample of eighteen SIDS. As shown, tourism accounts for a substantial portion of Gross

Domestic Product (GDP) and is a major generator of employment. In fact, with the exception of

oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago, the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) rates these SIDS

as among the top thirty-five (35) tourism-dependent countries. The industry also represents a

major source of foreign exchange to SIDS, which often lack an abundance of natural resources

with which to competitively develop other industries (see Koonjil, 2004). Many SIDS also rely

on the earnings from tourism to maintain somewhat sustainable current account deficits (see for

instance Lorde et al, 2010b), with tourism receipts accounting for up to 50% of total export

credits in some instances.

Recent international events further underline the importance of tourism to the economic fortunes

of these countries. The terrorist attacks of 2001, as well as other acts of terrorism caused a major

slowdown in global air travel, resulting in trying economic times for tourism-dependant states.

Also, the downturns being experienced in many source markets since the onset of the global

financial crisis have significantly reduced tourist arrivals for many developing countries (see

World Economic Forum, 2009). The effects of the financial crisis have been exacerbated by

rising fuel costs for airlines and cruise ships (see Ringbeck et al, 2009), resulting in a further

decline in global tourism demand and foreign exchange earnings for these micro-states.

Given the importance of tourism to SIDS, increasing (or at the very least, maintaining) the

portion of tourism has been a chief objective of policymakers. But, the emergence of newer

players in the market has raised a threat to SIDS’ status as major tourist destinations. This has

resulted in questions about the competitiveness of SIDS’ tourism products, as they compete

among themselves and larger territories that depend less on tourism for their economic survival.

In fact, during the last decade, competitiveness has become the most common concept employed

to approach and foster the sustainable development of the tourism industry. Against this

backdrop, this note evaluates the tourism competitiveness of eighteen SIDS between 2000 and

2007.

3

It should be noted that measuring and comparing tourism competitiveness is not an easy task,

particularly since “each destination may have different traditions, history, cultural and natural

resources, as well as unique ambitions and means of accomplishing objectives” (Bãlan et al,

2009) As such, several authors have created or adopted different models for measuring tourism

competitiveness. Among the myriad of tools used to analyse competitiveness are Porter’s five

forces model (Claver-Cortes et al, 2007), surveys that capture the consumer’s perceived image of

the destination (Enright and Netwon, 2004) and models based on price competitiveness (Dwyer

et al, 2000; Mangion et al, 2005). Yet, the literature has not arrived at a consensus on the most

appropriate measure of competitiveness.

In an attempt to shed some light on this issue, the World Economic Forum (WEF) developed the

Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) which aims to measure the factors and

policies that make it attractive to develop the tourism sector in different countries. The index is

based on three broad categories: (1) the travel and tourism regulatory framework index (2) the

travel and tourism business environment and infrastructure index and (3) the travel and tourism

human, cultural and natural resources index. However, the TTCI is not without its pitfalls.

First, while the TTCI would highlight the capacity of the country to incorporate tourism into its

development strategy, we argue that the tourism share is also an important element of tourism

competitiveness. Particularly, the gains or losses of world market shares by individual countries

would also serve as an excellent indicator of how competitiveness of a country has evolved over

time, and thus should also be considered. Second, the data needed for compilation of the index is

not readily available for many developing countries, and so, for many SIDS, a TTCI does not

exist. For instance, of the eighteen SIDS under evaluation in this study, a TTCI index only

exists for four of them (Barbados, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago).

This limits the extent to which governments of SIDS are able to evaluate their competiveness

and thus calls for an alternative approach to complete this task.

In this paper, the authors adopt a revealed comparative advantage approach, that is, a Balassa

index (see for instance Algieri, 2006; Bobirca and Bucureşti, 2007; Seyoum, 2007) to assess the

competitiveness of SIDS. This approach addresses some of the short comings of the WEF TTCI.

Particularly, the only data needed are tourism receipts, which are readily available for many

SIDS. Thus, policy makers can evaluate the competitiveness of those SIDS that are not included

in the WEF report, thereby improving the effectiveness of tourism planning and policy.

The remainder of this note is as follows. Section 2 explains the methodology and data. Section

3 discusses the empirical findings. We conclude in Section 4.

2. Methodology and Data

The theory of comparative advantage is probably one of the most important concepts in

international trade theory. In modern economic literature, the concept of comparative advantage

is commonly employed to evaluate patterns of trade and export specialization. Currently, there

are two prominent theories of comparative advantage: The Ricardian theory and the Heckscher-

4

Olin (HO) theory. Ricardian theory posits that a comparative advantage exists amongst

countries because of differences in technologies across industries. Instead, HO theory assumes a

country’s advantage is due to differences in factor prices across countries. According to

Heckscher-Olin theory, a country’s comparative advantage is determined by its relative factor

scarcity, that is, its factor endowment ratios relative to the rest of the world or a set of countries.

Since relative prices under autarky are not observable, measuring comparative advantage poses

particular challenges (Balassa, 1989). Against this backdrop, Balassa (1965) developed the most

widely used approach to analysing comparative advantage commonly known as the Balassa

Index or an index of revealed export advantage (RXA). Under this approach, it is not necessary

to include all the factors affecting a county’s comparative advantage i.e. prices or productivity.

Balassa (1965) opined that comparative advantage is “revealed” by observed trade patterns. He

argued that exports could be used to reveal the comparative advantage of a particular country in

the absence of data on factor costs, as the pattern of commodity exports reflects relative costs as

well as differences in non-price factors that can be expected to determine the structure of exports.

In other words, the actual export flows “reveal” the country’s strong sectors. So, in order to

determine whether or not country i holds a strong position in producing and exporting

commodity j, one should compare the share of commodity j exports of country i’s total exports,

with the share of exports of commodity j in a group of reference country’s total exports. The

Balassa index or revealed comparative advantage (RCA) is therefore a normalized export share,

defined as:

𝑅𝐶𝐴𝑖𝑗 = 𝑅𝑋𝐴 =𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑗 𝑖𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑖 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑠

𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑗 𝑖𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑠

=

𝑋𝑖𝑗

∑ 𝑋𝑖𝑗𝐽𝑗=1

⁄

∑ 𝑋𝑛𝑗𝑁𝑛=1

∑ ∑ 𝑋𝑛𝑗𝐽𝑗=1

𝑁𝑛=1

⁄

(1)

where ijX is country i’s export value of commodity j; 1

J

ij

j

X

is the total export value of country

i; 1

N

nj

n

X

is the export value of commodity j for a set of N reference countries; 1 1

N J

nj

n j

X

is the

export value of all commodities for a set of N reference countries; and ijRCA is the revealed

comparative advantage of country i in commodity j. When ijRCA is greater than 1, it indicates

that country i has a comparative advantage in the export of commodity j in the market of a set of

reference countries, since commodity j is more important for country i than for the exports of the

reference countries; while ijRCA less than 1 indicates the country possesses a comparative

disadvantage.

We use the classification system by Hinloopen and Marrewijk (2001) to classify SIDS according

to their degree of comparative advantage. Class a: 0 < ijRCA < 1 are countries without a

5

comparative advantage; Class b: 1 < ijRCA < 2 are countries with a weak comparative advantage;

Class c: 2 < ijRCA < 4 are countries with a medium comparative advantage; and Class d: ijRCA >

4 are countries with a strong comparative advantage.

All observations are sourced from the United Nations online database and run from 2000-2007,

while tourism receipts stand as our proxy of export values.

3. Empirical Findings and Analysis

In the first stage of the analysis, the Balassa index is calculated for each country (see Table 1).

The data reveals that during the 2000-2007 period, all SIDS showed a steady improvement in

their revealed comparative advantage, with each country registering an increase of at least 10%

between 2000 and 2007. Of particular note, the greatest improvement came from Trinidad and

Tobago, a country for which the energy sector has historically been the impetus of growth and

development. This near 60% increase may be a reflection of various policy initiatives by

government to enhance the role of tourism in Trinidad (see for instance Lewis and Brown, 2007).

To further assess the competitiveness, the classification system by Hinloopen and Marrewijk

(2001) is adopted. These results are presented in Table 3. First, we find that none of the SIDS

exhibit a comparative/competitive disadvantage in any time period; i.e. no state has a RCA

whose value is less than one. Rather, most SIDS seems to exhibit a weak to medium

comparative advantage. Taken at face value, this finding is very promising, given the extensive

investment in tourism undertaken by governments of several SIDS. Specifically, of the eighteen

SIDS evaluated, three can be classified as having a weak comparative advantage in tourism (the

Netherlands Antilles, Seychelles and Trinidad and Tobago); all others have a medium revealed

comparative advantage. Unfortunately, despite the importance of tourism to most SIDS, none of

them show a strong comparative advantage in tourism.

For ease of comparison, the countries are ranked in accordance to their competitiveness (Table

4). In each year, Maldives, the Dominican Republic, Anguilla, St. Lucia and the Bahamas are

ranked as having the highest comparative advantage while the rankings for Montserrat, the

Netherlands Antilles, Seychelles and Trinidad and Tobago are consistently low. One striking

observation is: the countries with the lowest competitiveness are among the countries where the

non-tourism sectors tend to be the mainstay of the economy. For instance, the main drivers of

growth in the Netherlands Antilles are petroleum transhipment, oil refinement and the offshore

financial sector; Seychelles, fishing; Trinidad, energy; and, for Montserrat, economic activity is

concentrated in the government services and construction sectors.

While the above analysis provides some insight into the competitiveness of SIDS, it is not

without its shortcomings. A main issue, as pointed out by Greenaway and Milner (1993) is that

the Balassa index of revealed comparative advantage is biased from the perspective that it fails to

account for imports and, as such, implies possible over or underestimation of any underlying

comparative advantage or disadvantage. As such, an alternative methodology for measuring

revealed comparative advantage which captures the import component of trade flows has been

6

advanced by Vollrath (1991) and is commonly known as the relative trade advantage (RTA).

The RTA can be expressed as the difference between the revealed export advantage (RXA) and

revealed import advantage (RMA):

1 12

1 1 1 1 1 1

/ /

/ /ij

J J

ij ij ij ij

j j

N N J N N J

nj nj nj nj

n n j n n j

X X M M

RCA RTA RXA RMA

X X M M

(2)

where variables are as defined in Equation (1), but M represents imports. It should be noted that

tourism receipts (inflows) are export values and tourism expenditures (outflows) are import

values. Under this approach, positive values indicate a comparative/competitive advantage

whereas negative values indicate comparative/competitive disadvantage. The results are

presented in Table 5.

Looking first at the mean of Vollrath indices over the time period, each state has an average RTA

which is positive. Thus, even when tourism imports are taken into consideration, all SIDS can

be said to have a revealed comparative advantage in tourism on average. However, an analysis

of the individual time periods takes an interesting turn. Similar to the calculated Balassa indices,

tourism competitiveness in each country has improved over the 2000-2007 period. But, the RTA

indices for Trinidad and Tobago are negative – hinting that during this period, the tourism sector

in Trinidad and Tobago was at a competitive disadvantage relative to our reference countries.

That is, the tourism sector was particularly weak in Trinidad and Tobago. This differs from the

results given by the Balassa index, where in each time period, each country exhibited at the very

least, a weak comparative advantage. Of course, it should be noted that of all the countries under

consideration, Trinidad and Tobago has the smallest dependence on tourism but also is the

largest exporter of tourists i.e. outbound tourism is largest for this country, and so, this may

account for the discrepancy.

The different measures of comparative advantage also provide slightly different rankings. For

instance, in Table 6, we compare the rankings of the mean values of both RCA indices. Under

the Balassa index of RCA, the top five countries in terms of tourism competitiveness are

Maldives, Dominican Republic, Anguilla, St. Lucia and the Bahamas. In contrast, the top five

countries by the Vollrath index are the Dominican Republic, Anguilla, The Bahamas, St. Lucia

and Aruba.

Given that varying indices produced slightly different results of revealed comparative advantage,

we follow Ballance et al. (1987) and conduct consistency tests to determine how the computed

indices perform as cardinal (related to the value of the indices) and ordinal measures (related to

how the indices rank the countries). Particularly, we use Pearson pairwise correlation and

Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients to properly gauge the consistency of the indices for the

eighteen countries under evaluation. Pearson pairwise correlation coefficients are calculated to

determine the consistency of these two indices as cardinal measures of comparative advantage.

The observed correlation coefficient is 0.871, and since it is above 0.8, the authors consider this a

7

sufficient condition for accepting that on average, the two indices produce consistent cardinal

results. To evaluate the level of ordinal consistency of the RCA indices, we calculate the

Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. Results suggest that the RCA indices are slightly less

consistent as ordinal measures, evidenced by a correlation coefficient of 0.852. Nonetheless, the

Spearman correlation is well over 0.8 and thus we can conclude that on average the two indices

also produce consistent ordinal results.

Taken together, our results suggest that both Balassa and Volltrath indices give consistent

results: the competitiveness of each small island developing state has improved over the 2000-

2007 time period and they all have at the very least a revealed comparative advantage in tourism

on average.

4. Concluding Remarks

In striving to foster the sustainable development of the tourism industry, several policy makers in

SIDS have shifted their attention to improving competitiveness. This paper analyses the

competitiveness of eighteen SIDS over the period 2000-2007. Using two alternative measures of

comparative advantage i.e. the Balassa index and the Vollrath index, we find that on average all

SIDS had at the very least a weak comparative advantage over the time period. Of particular

note, both indices indicate that competitiveness in most SIDS increased over the sample period.

But, in spite of their improvements, none of the countries at any point in time displayed a strong

comparative advantage. This would then call for a need for policy makers in SIDS to further

upgrade their tourism products in order to improve competitiveness and sustain tourism.

While this paper has provided some insight into the level of competitiveness of SIDS,

particularly for those for whom a TTCI does not exist, it is not without its limitations.

Specifically, while the index tells about the comparative advantage of the country, it does not

inform on how competitiveness can be further improved, or the area where the country falls

short. The indices calculated in this paper, in conjunction with a TTCI, would allow for a more

ideal analysis of tourism competitiveness in SIDS. Unfortunately, a TTCI only exists for four of

the eighteen SIDS under study. This then points to a need for more data collection on the travel

and tourism services in SIDS. This data deficiency substantially limits the comprehension and

evaluation of the competitiveness of SIDS, and by extension, the ability of policy makers,

business owners and managers to make informed and high quality decisions. Notwithstanding

this, the paper has, at the very least, provided some insight on the performance of SIDS—in

terms of tourism competitiveness—in the last decade.

8

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Table 1: Economic Impact of Tourism in SIDS in 2011 (WTTC Estimates) Country Contribution to Employment Contribution to GDP World Rank

Direct Total Direct Total

Anguilla 22.7 64.4 23.8 65.8 5

Antigua and Barbuda 17.8 74.2 18.0 69.0 2

Aruba 23.2 73.1 26.2 75.5 3

Bahamas, The 21.7 47.4 29.4 55.1 9

Barbados 14.2 47.0 14.6 46.6 10

Dominica 7.5 24.8 6.9 22.9 25

Dominican Republic 5.5 17.7 5.0 16.3 35

Grenada n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Haiti n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Jamaica n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Maldives 27.5 63.3 30.8 70.5 4

Montserrat n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Netherland Antilles 15.2 44.5 13.0 36.1 16

St. Kitts and Nevis 7.8 28.2 7.7 26.7 19

St. Lucia 15.4 45.8 17.5 45.4 11

St. Vincent and the Grenadines 7.7 26.2 7.1 23.9 23

Seychelles 23.0 27.6 23.9 56.4 7

Trinidad and Tobago 3.8 7.4 5.2 9.7 109

Source: Taken from the WTTC online database

Note: World ranking is out of 181countries and is in terms of relative contribution to national economy

11

Table 2: Revealed Comparative Advantage – Balassa Index

Country 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Mean

% ∆

2000-

2007

Anguilla 2.80 2.88 2.92 3.18 3.15 3.19 3.31 3.38 3.10 20.7

Antigua and Barbuda 2.25 2.22 2.34 2.57 2.50 2.45 2.61 2.58 2.44 14.7

Aruba 2.60 2.73 2.80 2.95 3.00 3.08 3.12 3.30 2.95 26.9

Bahamas, The 2.84 3.00 2.87 3.07 2.97 3.04 3.22 3.32 3.04 16.9

Barbados 2.34 2.31 2.31 2.57 2.47 2.49 2.78 2.98 2.53 27.4

Dominica 1.73 1.98 1.93 2.53 2.50 2.50 2.73 2.70 2.33 56.1

Dominican Rep. 2.85 2.95 2.99 3.23 3.18 3.27 3.27 3.35 3.14 17.5

Grenada 1.95 2.05 2.35 2.78 1.91 2.25 2.75 2.84 2.36 45.6

Haiti 2.40 2.48 2.48 2.52 2.17 2.00 2.54 2.67 2.41 11.3

Jamaica 2.12 2.13 2.13 2.27 2.22 2.43 2.69 2.79 2.35 31.6

Maldives 2.97 3.03 3.12 3.33 3.28 3.25 3.54 3.66 3.27 23.2

Montserrat 1.78 1.90 2.09 2.20 2.19 2.22 2.00 2.00 2.05 12.4

Netherlands Antilles 1.55 1.51 1.62 1.81 1.84 1.93 1.95 2.07 1.79 33.5

St. Kitts and Nevis 1.91 2.07 2.13 2.51 2.69 2.72 2.69 2.61 2.42 49.4

St. Lucia 2.79 2.80 2.83 3.18 3.14 3.17 3.25 3.36 3.07 36.6

St. Vincent and the Grenadines 2.08 2.19 2.24 2.48 2.34 2.42 2.54 2.73 2.38 20.4

Seychelles 1.56 1.63 1.76 1.86 1.86 1.90 2.02 2.33 1.87 31.3

Trinidad and Tobago 1.24 1.09 1.28 1.30 1.42 1.85 1.79 1.98 1.49 59.7

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Table 3: Classification of Revealed Comparative Advantage

Country 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Overall

Anguilla c c c c c c c c c

Antigua and Barbuda c c c c c c c c c

Aruba c c c c c c c c c

Bahamas, The c c c c c c c c c

Barbados c c c c c c c c c

Dominica b b b c c c c c c

Dominican Rep. c c c c c c c c c

Grenada b c c c b c c c c

Haiti c c c c c c c c c

Jamaica c c c c c c c c c

Maldives c c c c c c c c c

Montserrat b b c c c c c c c

Netherlands Antilles b b b b b b b c b

St. Kitts and Nevis b c c c c c c c c

St. Lucia c c c c c c c c c

St. Vincent and the Grenadines c c c c c c c c c

Seychelles b b b b b b c c b

Trinidad and Tobago b b b b b b b b c

Note: a = no comparative advantage; b = weak comparative advantage; c = medium comparative advantage; and d =

strong comparative advantage.

“Overall” is based on the mean value presented in Table 2:

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Table 4: Ranking of Tourism Competitiveness by Balassa Index Country 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Overall

Rank

Anguilla 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 3

Antigua and Barbuda 9 9 9 8 8 10 12 14 8

Aruba 6 6 6 6 5 5 6 6 6

Bahamas, The 3 2 4 5 6 6 5 5 5

Barbados 8 8 10 8 10 9 7 7 7

Dominica 15 14 15 10 8 8 9 11 14

Dominican Rep. 2 3 2 2 2 1 3 4 2

Grenada 12 13 8 7 15 13 8 8 12

Haiti 7 7 7 11 14 15 13 12 10

Jamaica 10 11 12 14 12 11 10 9 13

Maldives 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1

Montserrat 14 15 14 15 13 14 16 17 15

Netherlands Antilles 17 17 17 17 17 16 17 16 17

St. Kitts and Nevis 13 12 12 12 7 7 10 13 9

St. Lucia 5 5 5 3 4 4 4 3 4

St. Vincent and the Grenadines 11 10 11 13 11 12 13 10 11

Seychelles 16 16 16 16 16 17 15 15 16

Trinidad and Tobago 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18 18

14

Table 5: Revealed Trade Advantage (Vollrath Index)

Country 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Mean

Anguilla 2.06 2.08 2.15 2.44 2.42 2.53 2.60 2.66 2.37

Antigua and Barbuda 1.55 1.48 1.65 1.88 1.77 1.78 2.04 2.07 1.78

Aruba 1.81 1.95 1.86 2.01 1.97 2.18 2.57 2.69 2.13

Bahamas, The 1.94 2.05 2.00 2.01 1.97 2.01 3.22 3.32 2.32

Barbados 1.66 1.59 1.58 1.83 1.74 1.96 2.03 2.33 1.84

Dominica 1.14 1.33 1.32 1.78 1.73 1.73 2.15 2.10 1.66

Dominican Rep. 2.07 2.14 2.19 2.43 2.23 2.37 2.90 3.02 2.42

Grenada 1.65 1.73 2.04 2.41 1.57 1.86 2.22 2.30 1.97

Haiti 2.17 2.23 2.48 2.52 1.39 1.61 1.89 2.05 2.04

Jamaica 1.61 1.65 1.55 1.70 1.60 1.88 1.21 1.25 1.55

Maldives 1.49 1.56 1.65 1.94 1.97 2.01 2.20 2.25 1.88

Montserrat 1.51 1.60 1.69 1.81 1.85 1.84 1.09 0.79 1.52

Netherlands Antilles 0.37 0.34 0.41 0.34 0.40 0.58 1.42 1.55 0.68

St. Kitts and Nevis 1.50 1.69 1.78 2.14 2.24 2.28 1.76 1.65 1.88

St. Lucia 1.92 1.93 1.89 2.29 2.21 2.31 2.23 2.35 2.14

St. Vincent and the Grenadines 1.47 1.48 1.60 1.77 1.61 1.70 1.24 1.12 1.50

Seychelles 1.12 1.26 1.22 1.26 1.28 1.28 1.50 1.79 1.34

Trinidad and Tobago -0.09 -0.37 -0.51 0.26 0.46 0.59 0.45 0.56 0.17

15

Table 6: Comparison of Ranking by Various Revealed Comparative Advantage Indices

Country Rank according to Balassa Index Rank according to Vollrath Index

Anguilla 3 2

Antigua and Barbuda 8 11

Aruba 6 5

Bahamas, The 5 3

Barbados 7 10

Dominica 14 12

Dominican Rep. 2 1

Grenada 12 7

Haiti 10 6

Jamaica 13 13

Maldives 1 8

Montserrat 15 14

Netherlands Antilles 17 17

Seychelles 16 16

St. Kitts and Nevis 9 8

St. Lucia 4 4

St. Vincent and the

Grenadines 11 15

Trinidad and Tobago 18 18