This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the comparative advantages, as measured by the RSCA index and selected economic variables for Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand’s crude palm oil export during 2001-2017. The results of autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) analysis showed that in the short-run, the interest rate had a negative impact on Indonesia’s RSCA, while the one-period lag of the trade openness and the world price of soybean oil exhibited a positive impact. The findings suggested that the one-period lag of the exchange rate and the world price of crude petroleum oil had a short-run positive impact on Thailand’s RSCA. It further found no evidence of long-run relationships among the variables in the Indonesia and Thailand’s RSCA model. The model results also confirmed no relationships between Malaysia’s RSCA and real interest rate, foreign direct investment, trade openness, the world price of crude petroleum oil and soybean oil in the short-run and long-run. This study focused only on crude palm oil export and six independent variables. More palm oil products and economic factors such as GDP and world consumption should be included in future studies. Important policy implications for improving a country’s comparative advantage were recommended.
