International market structure and competitiveness at the malted beer: from 2003 to 2012

Barley malt beer is the world's most consumed alcoholic drink and its industry represents a multibillion dollar international trade. The paper's main goal is to contribute with the analysis of this industry in terms of its international competitiveness and market structure. It utilizes the data regarding exports and imports for malted beer available in the International Trade Centre's Trade Map database and it refers to the period of ten years (2003-2012). The method used to expose the industry's competitiveness and market structure consisted in the calculation of (i) Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA); (ii) Relative Position of Market (RPM); (iii) Hirschman-Herfindahl index (HHI) and (iv) Net Export Index (NEI). The findings show a high concentration for both the import and export markets and the detainers of the largest shares are: (1) the United States of America for imports and (2) Mexico, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany for exports. It was possible to identify the players in the market structure based on exporters, importers and both importers and exporters, stressing their position in the market.