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...

It has been argued that the increasing importance of global value chains necessitates a modification of conventional competitiveness measures. We compile a broad dataset including value added trade, gross exports and conventional and value added based real exchange rates. To sharply focus on...

I study the effect of increasing competition on financial performance through labour leverage. To capture competition, I exploit variation in product market contestability in the U.S. airline industry. First, I find that increasing competitive pressure leads to increasing labour leverage,...