The paper explores the trade competitiveness of seven major shrimp exporting countries,
namely Vietnam, China, Thailand, Ecuador, India, Indonesia and Mexico, to the USA.
Specifically, we investigate whether the United States (US) antidumping petitions impact upon
the bilateral revealed comparative advantage (RCA) indexes for each of the seven shrimp
exporting countries with the USA. Monthly data from January 2003 to December 2014 and the
panel data model are used to examine the determinants of the RCA for the shrimp exporting
countries. The empirical results show the shrimp exporting countries have superior
competitiveness against the shrimp market in the USA. Moreover, the RCA indexes are
significantly negatively influenced by shrimp prices, and are positively affected by US income
per capita. However, the EMS (Early Mortality Syndrome) shrimp disease, domestic US shrimp
quantity, exchange rate, and US antidumping laws are found to have no significant impacts on
the RCA indexes. In terms of policy implications, the USA should try to reduce production
costs of shrimp in the US market instead of imposing antidumping petitions, and the shrimp
exporting countries should maintain their comparative advantage and diversify into new
markets