IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2012-107.html

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

Author

Listed:
  • International Monetary Fund

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • International Monetary Fund, 2012. "Assessing Competitiveness Using Industry Unit Labor Costs: An Application to Slovakia," IMF Working Papers 2012/107, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2012/107
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=25881
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kaci, Mustapha, 2006. "Understanding Productivity: A Primer," The Canadian Productivity Review 2006002e, Statistics Canada, Economic Analysis Division.
    2. George A. Akerlof, 2009. "How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1175-1175.
    3. repec:wbk:wboper:27457 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:imf:imfops:2008/002 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Patrick Honohan & Brendan Walsh, 2002. "Catching Up with the Leaders: The Irish Hare," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 33(1), pages 1-78.
    6. De Broeck, Mark & Slok, Torsten, 2006. "Interpreting real exchange rate movements in transition countries," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 368-383, March.
    7. Leon Podkaminer, 2010. "Real Convergence And Price Levels: Long‐Term Tendencies Versus Short‐Term Performance In The Enlarged European Union," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 640-664, November.
    8. Matteo Salto & Alessandro Turrini, 2010. "427 - Comparing alternative methodologies for real exchange rate assessment - Matteo Salto and Aless," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 427, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    9. Bussière, Matthieu & Ca' Zorzi, Michele & Chudik, Alexander & Dieppe, Alistair, 2010. "Methodological advances in the assessment of equilibrium exchange rates," Working Paper Series 1151, European Central Bank.
    10. Mr. Ashoka Mody & Ms. Deniz O Igan & Ms. Stefania Fabrizio, 2007. "The Dynamics of Product Quality and International Competitiveness," IMF Working Papers 2007/097, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jarko Fidrmuc & Caroline Klein & Robert Price & Andreas Wörgötter, 2013. "Slovakia: A Catching Up Euro Area Member In and Out of the Crisis," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1019, OECD Publishing.
    2. repec:ags:aoeisl:170471 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Fidrmuc, Jarko & Wörgötter, Andreas, . "Euro Membership, Foreign Banks And Credit Developments During The Financial Crisis In Slovakia: A Case Study," Review of Agricultural and Applied Economics (RAAE), Faculty of Economics and Management, Slovak Agricultural University in Nitra, vol. 17(01).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fischer, Christoph & Hossfeld, Oliver, 2014. "A consistent set of multilateral productivity approach-based indicators of price competitiveness," Discussion Papers 10/2014, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    2. Comunale, Mariarosaria, 2022. "A panel VAR analysis of macro-financial imbalances in the EU," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    3. Claire Giordano, 2021. "How frequent a BEER? Assessing the impact of data frequency on real exchange rate misalignment estimation," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 68(3), pages 365-404, July.
    4. Bruha, Jan & Podpiera, Jirí & Polák, Stanislav, 2010. "The convergence dynamics of a transition economy: The case of the Czech Republic," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 116-124, January.
    5. Fischer, Christoph & Hossfeld, Oliver, 2014. "A consistent set of multilateral productivity approach-based indicators of price competitiveness – Results for Pacific Rim economies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(PA), pages 152-169.
    6. Michael Fidora & Claire Giordano & Martin Schmitz, 2021. "Real Exchange Rate Misalignments in the Euro Area," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 71-107, February.
    7. Leonor Coutinho & Nuria Mata Garcia & Alessandro Turrini & Goran Vukšić, 2021. "Methodologies for the Assessment of Real Effective Exchange Rates," European Economy - Discussion Papers 149, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    8. Comunale, Mariarosaria, 2018. "Current account and real effective exchange rate misalignments in Central Eastern EU countries: An update using the macroeconomic balance approach," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 414-436.
    9. Artem Vdovychenko, 2021. "Empirical estimation of REER trend for Ukraine," IHEID Working Papers 06-2021, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    10. Mr. Daniel Leigh & Mr. Abdul d Abiad & Mr. Ashoka Mody, 2007. "International Finance and Income Convergence: Europe is Different," IMF Working Papers 2007/064, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Stern, Nicholas, 2018. "Public economics as if time matters: Climate change and the dynamics of policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 4-17.
    12. Jang, Tae-Seok & Sacht, Stephen, 2017. "Modeling consumer confidence and its role for expectation formation: A horse race," Economics Working Papers 2017-04, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    13. Roy, Saktinil & Kemme, David M., 2012. "Causes of banking crises: Deregulation, credit booms and asset bubbles, then and now," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 270-294.
    14. António Afonso & Jorge Silva, 2017. "Current account balance cyclicality," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(13), pages 911-917, July.
    15. Klodt, Henning & Lehment, Harmen (ed.), 2009. "The Crisis and Beyond," Kiel E-Books, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, number 60981.
    16. Agnes Benassy-Quere, 2016. "Euro-Area Fiscal Stance: From Theory to Practical Implementation," CESifo Working Paper Series 6040, CESifo.
    17. Marcel Fratzscher, 2014. "Capital Controls and Foreign Exchange Policy," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Miguel Fuentes D. & Claudio E. Raddatz & Carmen M. Reinhart (ed.),Capital Mobility and Monetary Policy, edition 1, volume 18, chapter 7, pages 205-253, Central Bank of Chile.
    18. Dow Alexander & Dow Sheila C., 2011. "Animal Spirits Revisited," Capitalism and Society, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 1-25, December.
    19. Karsten Staehr, 2008. "The Maastricht Inflation Criterion and the New EU Members from Central and Eastern Europe," Bank of Estonia Working Papers 2008-04, Bank of Estonia, revised 30 Oct 2008.
    20. Brendan M. Walsh, 2002. "When unemployment disappears : Ireland in the 1990s," Working Papers 200229, School of Economics, University College Dublin.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2012/107. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.