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...

In recent years wages in China have been rising and the yuan has appreciated, potentially eroding China's cost advantage in manufactures. This paper explores the evolution of China's relative unit labor costs in manufacturing over 1998-2009. Between 1998 and 2003 China's unit labor costs fell,...

The international competitiveness of German industry, so greatly dependent on exports, is in large measure determined both by fluctuations in the rate of exchange and by the level of its labour costs in relation to those of its competitors in the world market. Recent trends in these two factors...