Assessing Competitiveness Using Industry Unit Labor Costs: An Application to Slovakia

April 1, 2012

Preview Citation

Format: Chicago

Assessing Competitiveness Using Industry Unit Labor Costs: An Application to Slovakia, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2012) accessed September 19, 2024

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

Conceptual ambiguities and statistical weaknesses hamper the assessment of external competitiveness. The term competitiveness, while applied extensively, is often imprecisely defined, which can result in analytical errors and mistaken policy advice. Furthermore, aggregate statistical measures of competitiveness in terms of exchange rate misalignment can be biased. To address these issues, this paper makes two contributions. First, it clarifies the external competitiveness concept, highlighting the dichotomy between productivity-driven long-run growth and short-run deviations from the underlying growth trajectory, which can be related to exchange rate misalignment. Second, it develops a disaggregated statistical approach for examining competitiveness based on unit labor costs at the three digit industry level in a group of comparable countries. The case of Slovakia is used to illustrate these concepts, but the analytical insights have general application.

Subject: Competition, Exchange rates, Export performance, Financial markets, Foreign exchange, Global competitiveness, Globalization, International trade, Production, Productivity

Keywords: Competition, Competitiveness, Cost, Disaggregated ULC, Exchange rate, Exchange rates, Export performance, Export share, Global, Global competitiveness, Industry unit labor cost, Paper estimates unit labor cost norm, Price level, Productivity, Slovakia, ULC dev., ULC relative, Unit labor cost, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

26
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2012/107
Stock No:

WPIEA2012107
ISBN:

9781475503289
ISSN:

1018-5941

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