How Governments Should Support the Adjustment of Competitiveness in the Euro Area - And How They Should Not

How Governments Should Support the Adjustment of Competitiveness in the Euro Area - And How They Should Not
Author: Holger Zemanek
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

Download How Governments Should Support the Adjustment of Competitiveness in the Euro Area - And How They Should Not Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In addition to unsustainable fiscal policies, the weak competitiveness of southern European countries is contributing to the ongoing crisis in the euro area. However, wages and productivity are only one element of competitiveness and the value of competitive wages is hard to measure. Hard-to-identify non-price competitiveness such as quality, innovation and technology of goods affects overall competitiveness too. Given the lack of information, the necessary level of wage adjustment needs to be negotiated on the market. Governments can support a market based adjustment of competitiveness by liberalising labour markets and by strengthening the business environment.

Adjustment Within the Euro Area

Adjustment Within the Euro Area
Author: Daniel Gros
Publisher:
Total Pages: 16
Release: 2016
Genre: Benchmarking (Management)
ISBN: 9789461384997

Download Adjustment Within the Euro Area Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

"The key problem afflicting the eurozone today seems clear: the periphery experienced a large loss of competitiveness during the boom years. In order for these economies to recover, they must restore their competitiveness, ideally by increasing productivity. This contribution shows, however, that the story line is not that straightforward. The drivers of competitiveness might have been more macro than micro in nature. The relationship between productivity and competitiveness is sometimes the opposite of what one would expect; and the link between competitiveness and exports is also much weaker than generally believed"--Publisher's description.

Economic Convergence in the Euro Area: Coming Together or Drifting Apart?

Economic Convergence in the Euro Area: Coming Together or Drifting Apart?
Author: Mr.Jeffrey R. Franks
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 47
Release: 2018-01-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484338499

Download Economic Convergence in the Euro Area: Coming Together or Drifting Apart? Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

We examine economic convergence among euro area countries on multiple dimensions. While there was nominal convergence of inflation and interest rates, real convergence of per capita income levels has not occurred among the original euro area members since the advent of the common currency. Income convergence stagnated in the early years of the common currency and has reversed in the wake of the global economic crisis. New euro area members, in contrast, have seen real income convergence. Business cycles became more synchronized, but the amplitude of those cycles diverged. Financial cycles showed a similar pattern: sychronizing more over time, but with divergent amplitudes. Income convergence requires reforms boosting productivity growth in lagging countries, while cyclical and financial convergence can be enhanced by measures to improve national and euro area fiscal policies, together with steps to deepen the single market.

A Compass to Guide EU Policy in Support of Business Competitiveness

A Compass to Guide EU Policy in Support of Business Competitiveness
Author: Fredrik Erixon
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022
Genre:
ISBN:

Download A Compass to Guide EU Policy in Support of Business Competitiveness Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The EU agenda for improving competitiveness is missing in action. Economic competitiveness has been a central plank in the development of the European Union - a relentless quest for policies that lead to more prosperity and that make European companies in world markets more successful. However, since the end of the Lisbon Agenda in 2010, economic competitiveness seems to have fallen off the EU map. This Agenda had its flaws, but it rightly sought to make Europe "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-economy in the world". The impression now is that Europe is on the retreat and the current European Commission is the first without a strategy to strengthen competitiveness at the EU level since the early 1990s. Hopefully, a course correction may now be on its way. Ursula von der Leyen has promised a "competitiveness check" on new EU policy. With the strong economic headwinds facing Europe and the world, the EU needs to pursue structural economic reforms that raise productivity and growth. This report offers a map and a competitiveness compass for the EU to find a new path towards a flourishing society. The report takes aim at faster economic growth in Europe. Growth is not the only target for the economy but is a prerequisite to achieve many of the non-economic objectives that are important. For instance, improved rates of growth are necessary to boost living standards in Europe, and to give many more citizens economic opportunities that have been absent after a decade of strong economic turbulence. Faster growth and stronger European competitiveness are also central in an age of increasing geopolitical frictions and war. The West and its allies are economically strong and innovative. But it is equally obvious that their economic power to command the direction of the world economy has weakened, and that the only way to fight against the economic gravity that takes more business, investment and innovation to China and other emerging economies is to make our own economies more competitive. Moreover, there is no environmental sustainability without innovation. To address climate change, Europe need as much technological progress as it can muster.

How Product Market Reforms Lubricate Shock Adjustment in the Euro Area

How Product Market Reforms Lubricate Shock Adjustment in the Euro Area
Author: Jacques Pelkmans
Publisher:
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2008
Genre: Capitalism
ISBN:

Download How Product Market Reforms Lubricate Shock Adjustment in the Euro Area Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

After 10 years of experience with the euro, few would dispute that the euro and the euro area fared much better than many observers expected (see e.g European Commission, 2008, for a very detailed account and analysis). However, this does not mean that some policy concerns have not lingered on. One prominent concern on which analysts, defenders, advocates and diehard opponents agree is the fear of a too weak adjustment capacity of the euro area. The present essay deals with one element of adjustment in the absence of national exchange rates and monetary policies, namely, the functioning of product markets as improved by reforms. One amongst several questions which preoccupy policy-makers in the eurozone is the rather unequal and (overall) insufficient ability of eurozone countries to adjust to asymmetric shocks, or, to common shocks with asymmetric effects. As is well-known, in a monetary union, monetary policy and, by implication (national) exchange rate policy, are no longer available for individual countries, so that alternative channels of adjustment have to be relied upon. The better these work, the greater the ability to adjust i.e. the lower the costs of adjustment to such shocks. Such abilities to adjust are a complex function of a range of options, including fiscal responses, temporary financial capital flows and market flexibilities, distinct as to countries and varying over time or case by case. This essay will zoom in on the "lubrication" of adjustment brought about by well-functioning markets. In particular, it deals with the subset of what are called "product market reforms" (comprising goods and services markets) meant to improve market functioning and thereby helping to facilitate adjustment processes in EMU. Other markets matter, too, such as labour, financial, housing and land markets but these will not be dealt with, except in passing and with some attention for the link (both substitutability and complementarity) with labour markets. -- EU Bookshop.

Europe Competing in the Global Economy

Europe Competing in the Global Economy
Author: European Commission. Competitiveness Advisory Group
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1997
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Download Europe Competing in the Global Economy Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Makes recommendations to the European Commission, heads of member states, and the Government of the European Union on improving European competitiveness politically, economically, and socially in order to raise living standards and maintain social cohesion. The four reports focus on the internal market, economy, and enterprise; regulation and environmental policy as they relate to innovation and research; labor; and benchmarks both in Europe and in Asia. Published by the European Communities in Luxembourg in 1995 and 1996. No bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Fiscal Impulse

Fiscal Impulse
Author: Mr.Mark Scott Lutz
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 13
Release: 1991-09-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1451851448

Download Fiscal Impulse Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The concept of fiscal impulse is defined, discussed, and differentiated from measures that attempt to summarize the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy. Two methodologies are briefly discussed and their corresponding measures presented for the G-7 countries over the ten-year period ending in 1989. Controversies about the measure are highlighted and potential improvements are also discussed.

Promoting Structural Reforms in the Euro Area

Promoting Structural Reforms in the Euro Area
Author: Eulalia Rubio
Publisher:
Total Pages: 20
Release: 2014
Genre: Euro
ISBN:

Download Promoting Structural Reforms in the Euro Area Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

At the moment when a new EU leadership is taking office and new policy priorities are being discussed, talks about the need to encourage structural reforms in euro area economies are reviving with force. There is however much confusion on why it is so important right now to promote reforms in the euro area and what would be the best mechanism to do so. This Policy paper by Eulalia Rubio distinguishes between three different rationales to promote reforms in the euro area: 1. improving the competitiveness of the euro area as a whole, 2. enhancing the euro area's capacity to adjust to shocks 3. and reducing intra-euro competitiveness gaps. The Policy paper discusses the relevance of these three objectives in today's EMU and analyses which policy response would be more appropriate to address each of them. Three main conclusions derive from this analysis. First, the costs of reforms are not fully recognised in the implementation of the stability and growth pact, particularly for countries under the corrective arm of the pact. To improve the competitiveness of the euro area, a more direct link should be made between efforts of reform and the extension of deadlines for deficit correction. Second, while there is a clear case for inducing euro area countries having excessive market rigidities to reform, monetary incentives do not seem the most appropriate tool to do so. To effective incentive to reform would be establishing minimum requirements of market flexibility and openness to competition as a pre-condition to member states' participation into a future euro area fiscal stabilisation mechanism. Third, non-cost competitiveness factors - and particularly, the quality of public institutions - account for an important part of the current intra-euro competitiveness divide. To close this divide, there is a case to accompany current efforts of 'internal devaluation' with an EU action aimed at supporting public governance reforms in peripheral countries.