Recent French Export Performance: Is There a Competitiveness Problem?

Alain Kabundi () and Francisco Nadal De Simone

No 2009/002, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: Recently, the export performance of France relative to its own past and relative to a major trading partner, Germany, deteriorated. That deterioration seems related to the geographical destination and product composition of trend exports. Faced with an increase in unit labor costs or in its terms of trade, France adjusts relatively less via price and wage changes, and more via employment changes. Given that SMIC convergence resulted in a significant increase in unit labor costs, foreign sector difficulties might be structural. Trade flows relevance and euro area policy constraints highlight the importance of structural reforms that increase markets flexibility.

Keywords: WP; demand shock; export; SITC; France (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 73
Date: 2009-01-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=22531 (application/pdf)

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:imf:imfwpa:2009/002

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().