This paper analyses the effect of competition from low-wage countries on domestic activity, using data on 230 Italian manufacturing sectors between 1995 and 2007. We find that low-wage import penetration is negatively related to employment and other measures of activity. The effect is...

As economic internationalization advances, the question of how firms cope with increasing pressure for competitiveness gains momentum. While scholars agree that firms need a competitive advantage, they debate whether firms exploit the comparative advantage of their economy and converge on that...

It is a central claim of the national competitiveness literature that firms exploit the comparative advantages of their environment by choosing to pursue the product market strategy that is facilitated by national financial- and labour-market institutions. Otherwise, so goes the argument, firms...