Taux de marge et investissement du secteur exportateur. Une analyse comparée entre la France et l’Allemagne

We studied changes in the mark-ups of the different sectors for France and Germany and reconstruct an export sector mark-up for these two countries from the national accounts and OECD value-added trade data. The main driver of divergences in the export sector?s mark-ups (5 value-added points over 1995-2017) has been the compression of unit labour costs in Germany. In addition, we found that investment in software, and more broadly in intellectual property rights, has pushed up the rate of depreciation of productive capital in the French export sector. The gap in the consumption of fixed capital between the French and German export sectors also represents 5 points of value added. These divergences between France and Germany in export sector mark-ups net of capital depreciation are closely correlated with the two countries? market shares. Although it is difficult to pin down causality, this variable significantly improves the export equations, by capturing a part not explained by the indicators of price competitiveness. An increase of one point of value added in the net mark-up eventually leads to an increase in exports of 1% in France and 0.7% in Germany. Based on this equation, seven years after the supply-side policy were implemented, it would contribute to increasing France?s exports by 1.9% and GDP by 0.6%. This estimate does not take into account the financing of the measures and macroeconomic feedback effects. A permanent reduction of 10 billion euros on production taxes would, all else being equal, boost France?s exports by 0.6% over 5 years and GDP by 0.2% through foreign trade alone.