Journal Article
No. 2016-30 | November 22, 2016
Oscar Bajo-Rubio, Burcu Berke and Vicente Esteve
The Effects of Competitiveness on Trade Balance: The Case of Southern Europe
(Published in Recent Developments in Applied Economics)

Abstract

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.

JEL Classification:

F31, F41, F45

Links

Cite As

Oscar Bajo-Rubio, Burcu Berke, and Vicente Esteve (2016). The Effects of Competitiveness on Trade Balance: The Case of Southern Europe. Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, 10 (2016-30): 1–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2016-30