The Effective Factors on Comparative Advantage of Iran's Raisin Export

The main purpose of this study was to investigate Iran's comparative advantage in raisin export and the effective factors on it. Time series data from 1961 to 2009 was applied to this investigation. Besides, the comparative advantages of raisin export for the main raisin producer and raisin importer countries were calculated and the results were compared with each other. In order to determine the comparative advantage of Iran in raisin export, three indexes were calculated: Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) and chi square measure (2). Based on the RCA index, the result indicated frequent fluctuations of the comparative advantage index for Iran which led from a rising trend to a falling trend. Also, comparing the calculated comparative advantages of raisin export for the main producer and exporter countries, it was indicated that the high volume of production and export was not necessarily due to the existence of comparative advantages in these countries. Afterward, the effective factors on the comparative advantage of raisin export were investigated through estimating a vector auto regressive (VAR) model for the period 1961-2008. The results of the estimated model indicated that the variables such as exchange rate, the amount of domestic production, the production rates of competitors and the world export price had positive effects on the comparative advantage of raisin export for Iran while fluctuations in production had a negative effect on it. These results indicate the need to protect domestic production to reduce production fluctuations, increased production and pave the path to export this product.