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.

This paper discusses five indicators of competitiveness: real exchange rates based on consumer price indices, export unit values of manufacturing goods, the relative price of traded to nontraded goods, normalized unit labor costs in manufacturing, and the ratio of normalized unit labor costs to value-added deflators in manufacturing. It discusses how each of these measures is associated with changes in a country’s balance of trade in goods and nonfactor services and examines the relationship among these indicators. It then examines the empirical performance of three of the indicators in terms of their ability to explain trade flows.

Report making a comparison of labour cost trends and international competitiveness in manufacturing - discusses the changing pattern in international division of labour and implications for newly industrializing countries and looks at hourly wage rates and exchange rate movements from 1970 to 1980 as labour cost factors in selected developed countries (in greater detail for the UK, Germany, Federal Republic, Japan and the USA), and compares these to selected NICs. Graphs and references.

This paper attempts to extend the range of countries covered by the IMF`s multilateral real exchange rate indexes based on relative unit labor costs (REER-ULCs) in manufacturing. A data set was assembled that permits calculation of REER-ULCs for 23 newly industrialized, developing, and transition countries in addition to the 21 industrial countries covered by the current system. Although the results are mostly quite encouraging, they should be considered preliminary because of uncertainty about the reliability and comparability of the underlying data. Also, unit labor costs are not available on as timely a basis as consumer price indexes (CPIs), especially for nonindustrial countries. Thus, the ULC-based indicators should supplement rather than replace the current CPI-based system.

In recent years, the rate of change of prices in the Greek economy does not seem to react proportionately to large reductions in wage costs cuts in the effort for fiscal consolidation and improving competitiveness. The disconnection between of price and wage developments makes harder the functioning of the monetary policy transmission channel. The proper function of the latter is important as hastens the target adjustments in terms of competitiveness and consumer purchasing power, thus supporting the growth and stability of the economy.This study examines the relationship between unit labor costs and price developments for the whole economy and for the main sectors. For the period 2000-2013 the econometric investigation provides evidence that prices and unit labor costs are characterized by a long-run equilibrium relationship and that for the whole economy, prices influence the development of unit labor costs, and vice versa.But for the period 2010-2013, the empirical findings show that the overall economy and particularly in the industrial sector, changes in unit labor costs have been largely disconnected from those prices, resulting in a profit margin to grow. The large reduction in unit labor costs is primarily due to the reduction in nominal compensation per employee and not an increase in labor productivity.Concluded that raising productivity is the critical factor that will improve the competitiveness of the economy, since the benefits of a possible further reduction of wages is ambiguous, and, moreover, such a policy would lead to a loss of social cohesion.

This paper provides an assessment of competitiveness and external trade performance of the French manufacturing industry during the 1980s and early 1990s. The first part of the paper reviews developments in a broad range of competitiveness indicators. The analysis indicates that the manufacturing sector appears to have maintained its competitive position in recent years. The second part discusses developments in export market shares. The third part estimates a vector error correction model relating the trade ratio to relative unit labor costs, domestic and foreign demand, and nonprice competitiveness. Variance decompositions suggest that fluctuations in price and nonprice competitiveness account for about two-fifths of fluctuations in manufacturing trade flows.

In its surveillance activities, the Fund is frequently confronted with the difficult problem of how to identify exchange rate behavior that is unrelated to underlying economic and financial conditions and, consequently, should be viewed with concern from a national or international standpoint. This paper considers the various issues related to this problem as it pertains to industrial countries, both those that have independently floating exchange rates and those that operate under other exchange arrangements.