The Effects of Competitiveness on Trade Balance: The Case of Southern Europe

Küçük Resim Yok

Tarih

2016

Dergi Başlığı

Dergi ISSN

Cilt Başlığı

Yayıncı

Walter De Gruyter Gmbh

Erişim Hakkı

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Özet

According to conventional wisdom, peripheral Southern European members of the euro area (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) suffer from a problem of competitiveness. Since their membership of the euro area renders devaluation impossible, adjustment should come through decreasing wages and prices in these countries, which, by improving the trade balance, should lead to a recovery of previous levels of employment and growth. In this paper, the authors estimate trade balance equations for the Southern European countries, both for total trade and for the trade performed with the European Union, taking three alternative measures of the real exchange rate, based on consumption price indices, export prices and unit labour costs, respectively. Their main conclusion is that demand seems to be more relevant than relative prices when explaining the evolution of the trade balance.

Açıklama

Anahtar Kelimeler

Trade balance, real exchange rate, competitiveness

Kaynak

Economics-The Open Access Open-Assessment E-Journal

WoS Q Değeri

Q4

Scopus Q Değeri

Q2

Cilt

10

Sayı

Künye