The Meaning and Measurement of International Competitiveness

Harry Bloch and Peter Kenyon

Chapter 2 in Creating an Internationally Competitive Economy, 2001, pp 16-35 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Discussions of economic policy and performance focus increasingly on the concept of international competitiveness. The enormous growth in world trade over recent decades means that the forces influencing trade between countries have substantial impact on the well-being of all citizens of modern economies. International competitiveness has become the catchphrase used to describe the ability to achieve desired outcomes in this era of globalization. However, with this popularity has come a fair degree of confusion. So much so that one of the world’s leading economists in international economics has concluded that the term when applied to cross-country comparisons ‘… is a largely meaningless concept’ (Krugman, 1996, p. 17). Part of this confusion is the implied hypothesis that in order to achieve increased living standards, countries must be able to successfully participate in this growth in international trade and that somehow this is a competitive struggle among countries, with winners and losers, both internationally and domestically.1

Keywords: Exchange Rate; International Trade; Labour Productivity; Comparative Advantage; Real Exchange Rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-55706-2_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230557062

DOI: 10.1057/9780230557062_2

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().