it appears sufficient to provide
information on " revealed " comparative advantage.
It is suggested here that " revealed " comparative advantage
can be indicated by the trade performance of individual countries
in regard to manufacturing products, in the sense that the
commodity pattern of trade reflects relative costs as well as
differences in non-price factors. For one thing, comparative
advantage would be expected to determine the structure of
exports ;l for another, under the assumption of uniformity in
tastes and a uniform incidence of duties in every industry within
each country, export-import ratios would reflect relative advantages.
Thus, while the heterogeneity of statistical commodity
groups allows for exports and imports within the same category,
the greater is a country's advantage in producing the commodities
in question, the higher the ratio of the f.0.b. value of exports to
that of imports is likely to be.