Krise in Griechenland

In the period 2000-2010 and in terms of Spanish interests, there was an adverse trend in price and cost differentials relative to the euro area as a whole. In spite of the correction caused by the crisis, the differential between unit labour costs in Spain and those of the euro area increased by 10%. Similarly, the Bank of Spain estimates the loss of competitiveness to be 10.1% when measured in terms of consumer prices and 5.7% in export price terms. This can essentially be put down to inflation being repeatedly higher in Spain without being offset by equally higher growth in productivity. On the other hand, the relative stability of the export share is also a fact: at a global level, this remained at around 1.7% for goods and close to 3.5% for services, while the share of goods and services within the euro area has not moved very far from 3.5%. These two figures could be due to a possible external shock that has shifted demand towards Spanish products, or due to a change in the composition of the export basket, or too simple an interpretation of the customary price competitiveness indicators. The hypothesis that links the trend in Spanish exports to disproportionate growth in the markets these exports are aimed at, which would have shifted demand in their favour, does not get much support from the data. Spain exports relatively little to the economies that have grown the most this decade, namely China, India and their neighbours in South East Asia, while the euro countries, the destination for almost two thirds of Spanish exports, have recorded relatively modest growth rates. Neither does it seem plausible that the strength of Spanish exports is due to changes in the composition of the export basket. The evidence points to a structure without any notable variations: in goods, a clear bias has remained towards sectors of a medium low technology content, given that high-tech goods have not managed to improve on their share of 5%. Services have been more dynamic, however, with a growing share of premium categories (the weight of business services has gone from 15.3% in 2000 to 23.3% in 2010, and IT services from 3.9% to 5.2%) but tourism continues to dominate, albeit reducing its share from 57% to 42%. Another figure that does not fit in with the theory of significant changes in the composition of Spanish exports is the stabilization in market share in practically all manufacturing sectors. So, one plausible hypothesis remains: that the apparently contradictory relationship between export share and competitiveness can be explained by possible deficiencies associated with the usual competitiveness indicators. Firstly, the loss in price competitiveness might have been overestimated; i.e. the export sector may not have lost (so much) competitive edge in prices as has been suggested by the indicators. Ultimately, the effective real exchange rate is merely an aggregate measure and, as such, cannot specifically reflect the reality of a highly heterogeneous business fabric. In this respect, the evidence confirms that exporters in Spain are clearly a case apart: not only do they tend to be larger and more innovative than the rest of firms but they also reveal higher than average levels of productivity and competitiveness. Recent studies state that, during the period 2000-08, those firms with more than 200 employees were the ones that increased their exports the most and that saw their unit labour costs (ULC) rise less quickly.(1) It can also be seen that the ULC of the largest Spanish firms (>500 employees) grew at a slower rate than that of their German, French or Italian peers while, according to a study by Fedea-McKinsey in 2010, their productivity is deemed to be comparable. If, moreover, we take into account the fact that it is precisely the competitiveness of these firms that export the most that ends up determining the behaviour of Spanish exports, the aggregate price competitiveness indicators would be too biased, underestimating the external competitiveness of the Spanish economy. This would explain part of the disconnection between satisfactory export trends and the loss of aggregate competitiveness.

The rest should be attributed to another deficiency of price competitiveness indicators: their inability to capture changes in the quality of exports. If we only take into account the trend in these indicators to reach conclusions regarding competitiveness, the influence of price on export performance is being overestimated. If this is the case (and it is, to judge by the disconnection between appreciation in the real exchange rate and the stability of the export share), we would be seeing a replica of the famous Kaldor paradox, a Hungarian-British economist who, back in 1978, claimed that the export success of a country was not necessarily related to a drop in prices. Fortunately, his famous paradox stopped being paradoxical when the new models of international trade included trade in differentiated products, proving, at a formal level, that companies do not just compete via price (as had been established by the classic models of trade in homogeneous goods) but also via the degree of differentiation, level of quality or power of the brand. In this respect, a recent study by Goldman Sachs confirms that, in the Spanish case, the factor of quality has been crucial. Their findings show that Spain is the country in the euro area with the lowest price elasticity regarding demand for its exports, a consequence of its specialization in sectors under little price pressure (medium and medium-low technology content) but in which competition in terms of quality is decisive.(2),(3) This would explain the relative immunity of the export share to the loss in price competitiveness. In short, there are reasons to believe that the strength of Spanish exports is due to the fact that the loss in competitiveness during the boom years was not as damaging as had been feared for Spanish exporting firms, as these were different from the average firm and, in any case, the competition faced by Spanish exporters is no longer governed solely by price but, above all, by differentiation strategies. Nonetheless, medium and long-term competitiveness continues to require continued improvements in productivity, improvements which, for the present, have fallen short. A situation that has yet to be resolved."
Quelle: http://www.pdf.lacaixa.comunicacions.com/im/eng/201106_eng.pdf (S.64)