Consistency Test of Revealed Comparative Advantage Index: Evidence from India's Agricultural Export

This article analyses the competitiveness of India's agricultural products in world markets. Four indices of revealed comparative advantage (RCA) were used at the four-digit level of harmonized system (HS) of classification for the period of 1996-2015. Under live animal products, 7 out of 26 products showed RCA. For vegetable products, 21 out of 58 showed strong RCA. For products like animal or vegetable fat and prepared foodstuff, 2 out of 16 and 9 out of 49 showed RCA, respectively. Further, the consistency tests reveal that the indices are less satisfactory as the cardinal and dichotomous measures but relatively satisfactory as ordinal measure. Hence, study would propose an ordinal interpretation of RCAs indices for better policy formulation. The study has also found the pattern of RCA indices to be fairly stable over the years.