What Is Comparative Advantage?

Investopedia / Joules Garcia

Comparative advantage is an economy's ability to produce a particular good or service at a lower opportunity cost than its trading partners. Comparative advantage is used to explain why companies, countries, or individuals can benefit from trade.

When used to describe international trade, comparative advantage refers to the products that a country can produce more cheaply or easily than other countries. While this usually illustrates the benefits of trade, some contemporary economists now acknowledge that focusing only on comparative advantages can result in exploitation and depletion of the country's resources.

The law of comparative advantage is popularly attributed to English political economist David Ricardo and his book On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation written in 1817, although it is likely that Ricardo's mentor, James Mill, originated the analysis.

Key Takeaways

• Comparative advantage is an economy's ability to produce a particular good or service at a lower opportunity cost than its trading partners.
• The theory of comparative advantage introduces opportunity cost as a factor for analysis in choosing between different options for production.
• Comparative advantage suggests that countries will engage in trade with one another, exporting the goods that they have a relative advantage in.
• There are downsides to focusing only on a country's comparative advantages, which can exploit the country's labor and natural resources.
• Absolute advantage refers to the uncontested superiority of a country to produce a particular good better.

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Explaining Comparative Advantage

Understanding Comparative Advantage

Comparative advantage is one of the most important concepts in economic theory and a fundamental tenet of the argument that all actors, at all times, can mutually benefit from cooperation and voluntary trade. It is also a foundational principle in the theory of international trade.

The key to understanding comparative advantage is a solid grasp of opportunity cost. Put simply, an opportunity cost is a potential benefit that someone loses out on when selecting a particular option over another.

In the case of comparative advantage, the opportunity cost (that is to say, the potential benefit that has been forfeited) for one company is lower than that of another. The company with the lower opportunity cost, and thus the smallest potential benefit which was lost, holds this type of advantage.

Another way to think of comparative advantage is as the best option given a trade-off. If you're comparing two different options, each of which has a trade-off (some benefits as well as some disadvantages), the one with the best overall package is the one with the comparative advantage.

Diversity of Skills

People learn their comparative advantages through wages. This drives people into those jobs that they are comparatively best at. If a skilled mathematician earns more money as an engineer than as a teacher, they and everyone they trade with are better off when they practice engineering.

Wider gaps in opportunity costs allow for higher levels of value production by organizing labor more efficiently. The greater the diversity in people and their skills, the greater the opportunity for beneficial trade through comparative advantage.

Example of Comparative Advantage

As an example, consider a famous athlete like Michael Jordan. As a renowned basketball and baseball star, Michael Jordan is an exceptional athlete whose physical abilities surpass those of most other individuals. Michael Jordan would likely be able to, say, paint his house quickly, owing to his abilities as well as his impressive height.

Hypothetically, say that Michael Jordan could paint his house in eight hours. In those same eight hours, though, he could also take part in the filming of a television commercial which would earn him $50,000. By contrast, Jordan's neighbor Joe could paint the house in 10 hours. In that same period of time, he could work at a fast food restaurant and earn $100.

In this example, Joe has a comparative advantage, even though Michael Jordan could paint the house faster and better. The best trade would be for Michael Jordan to film a television commercial and pay Joe to paint his house. So long as Michael Jordan makes the expected $50,000 and Joe earns more than $100, the trade is a winner. Owing to their diversity of skills, Michael Jordan and Joe would likely find this to be the best arrangement for their mutual benefit.

Comparative Advantage vs. Absolute Advantage

Comparative advantage is contrasted with absolute advantage. Absolute advantage refers to the ability to produce more or better goods and services than somebody else. Comparative advantage refers to the ability to produce goods and services at a lower opportunity cost, not necessarily at a greater volume or quality.

To see the difference, consider an attorney and their secretary. The attorney is better at producing legal services than the secretary and is also a faster typist and organizer. In this case, the attorney has an absolute advantage in both the production of legal services and secretarial work.

Nevertheless, they benefit from trade thanks to their comparative advantages and disadvantages. Suppose the attorney produces $175 per hour in legal services and $25 per hour in secretarial duties. The secretary can produce $0 in legal services and $20 in secretarial duties in an hour. Here, the role of opportunity cost is crucial.

To produce $25 in income from secretarial work, the attorney must lose $175 in income by not practicing law. Their opportunity cost of secretarial work is high. They are better off by producing an hour's worth of legal services and hiring the secretary to type and organize. The secretary is much better off typing and organizing for the attorney; their opportunity cost of doing so is low. It’s where their comparative advantage lies.

Comparative advantage is a key insight that trade will still occur even if one country has an absolute advantage in all products.

Comparative Advantage vs. Competitive Advantage

Competitive advantage refers to a company, economy, country, or individual's ability to provide a stronger value to consumers as compared with its competitors. It is similar to, but distinct from, comparative advantage.

In order to assume a competitive advantage over others in the same field or area, it's necessary to accomplish at least one of three things: the company should be the low-cost provider of its goods or services, it should offer superior goods or services than its competitors, and/or it should focus on a particular segment of the consumer pool.

Comparative Advantage in International Trade

David Ricardo famously showed how England and Portugal both benefit by specializing and trading according to their comparative advantages. In this case, Portugal was able to make wine at a low cost, while England was able to cheaply manufacture cloth. Ricardo predicted that each country would eventually recognize these facts and stop attempting to make the product that was more costly to generate.

Indeed, as time went on, England stopped producing wine, and Portugal stopped manufacturing cloth. Both countries saw that it was to their advantage to stop their efforts at producing these items at home and, instead, to trade with each other in order to acquire them.

Comparative advantage is closely associated with free trade, which is seen as beneficial, whereas tariffs closely correspond to restricted trade and a zero-sum game.

A contemporary example: China’s comparative advantage with the United States is in the form of cheap labor. Chinese workers produce simple consumer goods at a much lower opportunity cost. The United States’ comparative advantage is in specialized, capital-intensive labor. American workers produce sophisticated goods or investment opportunities at lower opportunity costs. Specializing and trading along these lines benefit each.

The theory of comparative advantage helps to explain why protectionism is typically unsuccessful. Adherents to this analytical approach believe that countries engaged in international trade will have already worked toward finding partners with comparative advantages.

If a country removes itself from an international trade agreement, if a government imposes tariffs, and so on, it may produce a local benefit in the form of new jobs and industry. However, this is not a long-term solution to a trade problem. Eventually, that country will be at a disadvantage relative to its neighbors: countries that were already better able to produce these items at a lower opportunity cost.

The classical understanding of comparative advantage does not account for certain disadvantages that come from over-specialization. For example, an agricultural country that focuses on cash crops, and relies on the world market for food, could find itself vulnerable to global price shocks.

Criticisms of Comparative Advantage

Why doesn't the world have open trading between countries? When there is free trade, why do some countries remain poor at the expense of others? Perhaps comparative advantage does not work as suggested. There are many reasons this could be the case, but the most influential is something that economists call rent seeking. Rent seeking occurs when one group organizes and lobbies the government to protect its interests.

Say, for example, the producers of American shoes understand and agree with the free-trade argument but they also know that their narrow interests would be negatively impacted by cheaper foreign shoes. Even if laborers would be most productive by switching from making shoes to making computers, nobody in the shoe industry wants to lose their job or see profits decrease in the short run.

This desire leads the shoemakers to lobby for, say, special tax breaks for their products and/or extra duties (or even outright bans) on foreign footwear. Appeals to save American jobs and preserve a time-honored American craft abound, even though, in the long run, American laborers would be made relatively less productive and American consumers relatively poorer by such protectionist tactics.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Comparative Advantage

Advantages

In international trade, the law of comparative advantage is often used to justify globalization, since countries can have higher material outcomes by producing only goods where they have a comparative advantage, and trading those goods with other countries. Countries like China and South Korea have made major productivity gains by specializing their economies in certain export-focused industries, where they had a comparative advantage.

Following comparative advantage increases the efficiency of production by focusing only on those tasks or products that one can achieve more cheaply. Products that are more expensive or time-consuming to make can be purchased from elsewhere. In turn, this will improve a company's (or a country's) overall profit margins, since costs associated with less-efficient production will be eliminated.

Disadvantages

On the other hand, over-specialization also has negative effects, especially for developing countries. While free trade allows developed countries to access cheap industrial labor, it also has high human costs due to the exploitation of local workforces.

By offshoring manufacturing to countries with less stringent labor laws, companies can benefit from child labor and coercive employment practices that are illegal in their home countries.

Likewise, an agricultural country that focuses only on certain export crops may find itself suffering from soil depletion and destruction of its natural resources, as well as harm to indigenous peoples. Moreover, there are also strategic disadvantages to over-specialization, since that country would find itself dependent on global food prices.1

Pros and Cons of Comparative Advantage

Pros

• Higher Efficiency
• Improved profit margins
• Lessens the need for government protectionism

Cons

• Developing countries may be kept at a relative disadvantage
• May promote unfair or poor working conditions elsewhere
• Can lead to resource depletion
• Risk of over-specialization
• May incentivize rent-seeking

Who Developed the Law of Comparative Advantage?

The law of comparative advantage is usually attributed to David Ricardo, who described the theory in "On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation," published in 1817. However, the idea of comparative advantage may have originated with Ricardo's mentor and editor, James Mill, who also wrote on the subject.2

How Do You Calculate Comparative Advantage?

Comparative advantage is usually measured in opportunity costs, or the value of the goods that could be produced with the same resources. This is then compared with the opportunity costs of another economic actor to produce the same goods.

For example, if Factory A can make 100 pairs of shoes with the same resources it takes to make 500 belts, then each pair of shoes has an opportunity cost of five belts. If competitor factory B, can make three belts with the resources it takes to make one pair of shoes, then factory A has a comparative advantage in making belts, and factory B has a comparative advantage in making shoes.

What Is an Example of Comparative Advantage?

An interesting example of comparative advantages often arises for high-powered executives, who may consider hiring an assistant to answer their emails and perform certain secretarial functions. The executive may even better at performing these duties than their assistant—but the time they spend doing secretarial work could be spent more profitably by doing executive work. Likewise, even if the assistant is mediocre at secretarial work, they would likely be even more ill-suited for executive work. Together, they are ultimately more productive if they focus on their comparative advantages.

The Bottom Line

Comparative advantage is one of the most important concepts in economics. In classical economics, this idea explains why people, countries, and businesses can experience greater collective benefits through trade and exchange than they can produce alone. However, contemporary economists have also pointed out that these gains can be one-sided, or result in exploitation of the weaker parties.