V. Hadzhiev
Asymmetric Specialisation of Exports in a Liberal International Trade Environment
Summary:
Asymmetric specialisation in exports is a common feature of modern liberal trade. It is expressed by the fact that most countries export mainly raw materials and low-processed products and a small number of countries export highly processed products. The purpose of this article is to prove that asymmetric specialisation in exports did not change significantly during the operating period of the WTO by ap¬plying hierarchical cluster analysis.
The analysis found that, from 1995 to 2011, asymmetric specialisation in exports did not change substantially. It was concluded that, for both these specific years, a large group of countries fell into the first cluster (76% and 74% respectively of the total number of countries). The rest of them were evenly distributed in neighbouring clusters. It was also found that countries from the first cluster have mainly specialised in the export of raw materials and low-processed products. Based on the results, it can be concluded that asymmetric specialisation in exports is a chronic, long-term problem of liberal international trade.
