Purpose Comparative advantage is an important indicator in the analysis of international trade flow; however, in empirical studies on agriculture it is often neglected. The purpose of this paper is to analyse global comparative advantage in the European Union (EU) wine industry and to test the duration and stability of trade indices. Design/methodology/approach The paper applies the theory of comparative advantages by using the Balassa indices to European wine trade (based on the 16 biggest producers) data from the period 2000-2013. Moreover, it applies stability and duration analysis on comparative advantages calculated. Findings Results suggest that Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain are the highest ranked European wine producers in the world market and have the largest comparative advantages. However, duration and stability tests indicate that trade advantages have weakened for the majority of these countries. The paper discusses a number of reasons for this downturn, including changes to Common Agricultural Policy wine regulation, economic crisis, and the rise of New World wine producers. Originality/value The originality of the paper is that it applies the theory of comparative advantage to top wine exporters in the EU. The paper also makes valuable contributions to the wine literature by analysing the duration and stability of comparative advantage in the global wine trade. Moreover, the identification of industry-specific causes for changing patterns in comparative advantage in the EU might be important to the wine industry.

In line with the development of international trade, environmental concerns have arisen as a global problem. International trade has the potential to increase environmental externalities such as transboundary pollution, deforestation, transportation and production relocation avoiding environmental standards. The share of agricultural goods in total export reached 15% in 2017. Since 2002, the proportion of unprocessed agricultural products have more than doubled, while the volume of processed goods in global trade has tripled. Despite the importance of agricultural trade worldwide, the number of studies exploring the trade-agriculture-environment nexus has so far been limited. This paper aims to provide an overview of the environmental impacts of agricultural trade based on the international economics literature published in recent years by way of a systematic literature review. Results suggest that most recent environmental studies do not view extended trade or trade liberalization in agriculture favourably. Only a limited number of papers state that a country or countries’ environment could benefit from agricultural trade, and only a few researchers have found that agricultural trade did not have any significant influence at all, or have instead found the effects on the environment to be ambiguous. Finally, the research reveals the most important consequences of pollution and offers potential solutions.

The reductions of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions are an essential objective of the European Union (EU) to achieving the reduction target by 20% by 2020. Along with energy consumption and agriculture, trade has a diverse impact on climate change. International trade usually negatively affects the environment, while the influence of intra-industry trade is more favourable. The paper investigates the impact of energy use, agriculture, and intra-industry trade on environmental pollution in EU countries using panel data for the period 2000–2014. The research frames the theoretical hypothesis that describing the relationship between agricultural intra-industry trade and climate change. The assumptions are confirmed by panel fixed effects, and Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) estimations, and the panel cointegration test. The empirical results have supported by the literature, and all variables used in this study are stationary applying panel unit root test. Results show that agricultural intra-industry trade, renewable energy is negatively correlated with climate change, confirming the less pollutant hypothesis, while economic growth and agricultural productivity induce environmental problems. This study confirms the theoretical hypotheses explaining the effect of intra-industry trade for agricultural products as well as the impacts of renewable energy use, agricultural land productivity, and economic growth on CO2 emissions.

In the progressively globalising world, wine trade is changing shape. In recent decades, major wine producers have suffered a remarkable drop in their domestic wine consumption, while New World wine producers have increased their production potential and induced new demand in foreign markets. These changes have been accompanied by a geographical relocation of wine consumption and trade. The aim of our paper is to analyse the effect of cultural-geographical proximity, free trade and the role of linguistic similarity on bilateral wine trade in the world major wine producer countries, employing balanced panel gravity model. Regression results suggest that larger countries export more wine, while transport costs increase in line with geographical distance, especially for landlocked trading partners. Moreover, global wine export costs are lower if trading partners are culturally similar; have the same religion or both are members of the WTO or have regional trade agreements.

Purpose In recent decades, New World winemakers have increased their wine export to European markets and became considerable market players in the EU. Therefore, this paper aims to explore whether the major New World wine producers are able to exploit its market power at European destination markets. Design/methodology/approach The paper applies the pricing-to-market (PTM) model of trade in respect of asymmetric effect of exchange rate changes by using monthly bilateral wine data between January 2000 and December 2016. Findings First, there is evidence of PTM in three New World wine exporters, namely, Chile, South Africa and the USA. Chile was able to apply price discrimination across Danish, German, Dutch and the British wine markets. Second, South Africa set their prices in Belgian, Dutch and Swedish markets, while the USA discriminated their wine prices in Denmark and Sweden. In contrast, this advantage was not observable in the case of Argentina and Australia. Third, the local-currency price stability was explored in Chilean wine import prices (exported to Belgium, the Czech Republic), South African wine prices (exported to France, Denmark, Germany), in US wine prices (sold in Germany and the UK). Furthermore, the analysis of the asymmetric effects of exchange rate changes suggests that depreciation of the exporter’s currency relative to the Euro had not a significant impact on EU wine import prices. On the whole, the estimated pricing to market model indicates that a non-competitive pricing behaviour of New World exporters was limited and was rather due to the market-specific characteristics. Research limitations/implications The research provides multiple advice for New World wine producers. First, in general, European consumers do not pay an extra price for the New World bottled wines. Second, only Chilean, South African and North American wine exporters can expect higher prices for its wines from European buyers only. Moreover, European wine markets are fairly competitive where New World wine exporters do not have significant market dominance. Therefore, New World wine exporters should strengthen its wine marketing and branding strategy to gain higher market share in Europe and to attract attention to its wines. Finally, exchange rates relative to Euro should be continuously monitored by the New World wine exporters because it might deviate the wine export prices significantly. Originality/value The study applies the pricing-to-market model to major New World wine exporters on the European Union’s destination market. The paper also makes valuable contributions to the wine literature by testing the asymmetric effects of exchange rate changes on wine import prices. It analyses the nature of price discrimination, whether it is market-specific or exchange rate influenced, or both.

Nowadays, the topic of climate change and its consequences are on the agenda of the everyday life. Due to the greenhouse effect, an effective doubling of Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentrations is expected by 2030. During the history, the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere has grown mainly as a result of human activity in the Earth. The anthropogenic CO 2 emission accounts for around three-fourths of global GHG emissions. The development of GHG emissions is extremely associated with global warming. Approximately one-third of the global atmospheric methane emissions derived from agricultural activities. Throughout the agricultural production process, high amounts of GHG emissions are released, which affect negatively the environment and the climate. The intensity of agriculture-related factors of climate change is varying over countries and continents. The objective of the research is to explore the main agricultural-related determinants of climate change focusing on livestock, burning crop residues, rice production, manure management, synthetic fertilizer use along with the geographical and cultural factors of the pollution. The analysis was carried out on a sample representing the world economy.

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The European Union (EU) is one of the biggest traders of agricultural products. In 2017, extra-EU agricultural trade accounted for 7.4% of the total EU international trade. Furthermore, Europe is the main destination for agricultural goods arriving from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) trading partners. The paper analyses the effect of geographical proximity, cultural similarity, free trade agreements on bilateral agricultural trade as well as intra-industry trade between EU member states and its trading partners (intra and extra EU trade), employing gravity model for a period of 1996–2017. Regression results suggest that EU countries export more agricultural products to their common markets. In addition, the export costs of agricultural products are lower if the EU and its external trading partners are culturally similar; have the same religion or both have regional trade agreements. We found a moderate intra-industry trade between the EU and ACP countries at 18%. The results indicate rather inter-industry trade between EU and non-EU members, with a lower index level for ACP countries. A higher positive impact is revealed on the agricultural import between ACP-EU countries than export.