IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/onb/oenbmp/y2006iq4-06b5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Revised and New Competitiveness Indicators for Austria Reflect Improvement Trend since EMU Accession

Author

Listed:
  • Walpurga Köhler-Töglhofer
  • Christa Magerl

    (Austrian Institute of Economic Research)

  • Peter Mooslechner

    (Oesterreichische Nationalbank)

Abstract

Maintaining and improving competitiveness is one key goal of economic policy. In the short run, it is primarily price and cost developments as well as exchange rate changes that have the biggest impact on the development of an economy’s competitiveness. The competitiveness of Austrian manufacturing exporters has continued to augment since the country’s entry into Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) – this has been confirmed by the 2006 revision of the price competitiveness indicator for Austria (deflated by the (Harmonised) Index of Consumer Prices – HICP/CPI) and even more so by the new cost competitiveness indicator (deflated by relative unit labor costs) launched in this context. The marked improvement of the cost competitiveness indicator in recent years reflects moderate wage policies coupled with comparatively solid productivity growth in the Austrian manufacturing sector. The lower gain measured by the price competitiveness indicator may be linked to the fact that the HICP/CPI was broadly driven by oil price developments in 2004 and 2005, which masked the favorable unit labor cost developments in the manufacturing industry. Contrary to the development in the manufacturing sector, the price competitiveness in Austria’s travel and tourism sector has deteriorated somewhat: Even though price developments in Austria were more favorable than in the competition markets, they did not wholly offset losses in competitiveness related to exchange rate developments.

Suggested Citation

  • Walpurga Köhler-Töglhofer & Christa Magerl & Peter Mooslechner, 2006. "Revised and New Competitiveness Indicators for Austria Reflect Improvement Trend since EMU Accession," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue Q4/06, pages 70-97.
    • Handle: RePEc:onb:oenbmp:y:2006:i:q4/06:b:5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.oenb.at/dam/jcr:b198ad0d-b775-4a4b-850c-57a004a5a493/mop_2006_4_05_tcm16-52026.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marc Klau & San Sau Fung, 2006. "The new BIS effective exchange rate indices," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    2. Robert Lafrance & Patrick Osakwe & Pierre St-Amant, 1998. "Evaluating Alternative Measures of the Real Effective Exchange Rate," Staff Working Papers 98-20, Bank of Canada.
    3. Egon Smeral & Alfred Franz & Peter Laimer, 2002. "Ein Tourismussatellitenkonto für Österreich. Ökonomische Zusammenhänge, Methoden und Hauptergebnisse," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 75(1), pages 29-37, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ursula Glauninger & Thomas Url & Klaus Vondra, 2022. "Exchange rate index update for Austria shows lower effective appreciation than previously measured," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue Q4/21, pages 13-41.
    2. Christian Ragacs & Beate Resch & Klaus Vondra, 2011. "Austria’s Manufacturing Competitiveness," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 3, pages 35-61.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christa Magerl & Peter Mooslechner, 2006. "Revised and New Competitiveness Indicators for Austria Reflect Improvement Trend since EMU Accession," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 4, pages 70-97.
    2. M. Nakorji & E. Udeaja & F. Ismail & S. Zimboh & T. Obiezue & O. Asuzu, 2019. "Computation of the Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) using the Bank for International Settlement (BIS) Methodology," Economic and Financial Review, Central Bank of Nigeria, vol. 57(3), August.
    3. Coudert, Virginie & Couharde, Cécile & Mignon, Valérie, 2015. "On the impact of volatility on the real exchange rate – terms of trade nexus: Revisiting commodity currencies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 110-127.
    4. Jón Steinsson, 2008. "The Dynamic Behavior of the Real Exchange Rate in Sticky Price Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 519-533, March.
    5. Mpoha, Salifya & Bonga-Bonga, Lumengo, 2020. "Assessing the extent of exchange rate risk pricing in equity markets: emerging versus developed economies," MPRA Paper 99597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Barry Eichengreen & Douglas A. Irwin, 2008. "International Economic Policy: Was There a Bush Doctrine?," NBER Working Papers 13831, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/17o1b2tj1o9vqae31ao13vabec is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2016. "Asymmetric loss and rationality of Chinese renminbi forecasts: An implication for the trade between China and the US," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 116-127.
    9. Thapa, Chandra & Poshakwale, Sunil S., 2012. "Country-specific equity market characteristics and foreign equity portfolio allocation," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 189-211.
    10. Mayer, Thierry & Steingress, Walter, 2020. "Estimating the effect of exchange rate changes on total exports," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    11. Joscha Beckmann & Mariarosaria Comunale, 2020. "Exchange rate fluctuations and the financial channel in emerging economies," Bank of Lithuania Working Paper Series 83, Bank of Lithuania.
    12. Michele Ca’ Zorzi & Jakub Muck & Michal Rubaszek, 2016. "Real Exchange Rate Forecasting and PPP: This Time the Random Walk Loses," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 585-609, July.
    13. Duo Qin & Xinhua He, 2011. "Is the Chinese Currency Substantially Misaligned to Warrant Further Appreciation?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(8), pages 1288-1307, August.
    14. Sean Fahle & Jaime R. Marquez & Charles P. Thomas, 2008. "Measuring U.S. international relative prices: a WARP view of the world," International Finance Discussion Papers 917, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Oliver Entrop & Matthias F. Merkel, 2020. "Managers’ research education, the use of FX derivatives and corporate speculation," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 869-901, August.
    16. Baghestani, Hamid & Chazi, Abdelaziz & Khallaf, Ashraf, 2019. "A directional analysis of oil prices and real exchange rates in BRIC countries," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 450-456.
    17. Jeanne, Olivier & Son, Jeongwon, 2012. "To what extent are tariffs offset by exchange rates?," Economics Working Paper Archive 66656, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics.
    18. Adnan Velic, 2017. "Current Account Imbalances, Real Exchange Rates, and Nominal Exchange Rate Variability," Trinity Economics Papers tep1417, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics, revised Oct 2021.
    19. Andrea Fracasso & Stefano Schiavo, 2009. "Trade-imbalances networks and exchange rate adjustments: the paradox of a new Plaza. The XIVth Spring Meeting of Young Economists (SMYE-2009), Istanbul, April 2009," Post-Print hal-01053278, HAL.
    20. Beckmann, Joscha & Czudaj, Robert, 2017. "Capital flows and GDP in emerging economies and the role of global spillovers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 140-163.
    21. Ms. Jayasri Dutta, 2002. "Dread of Depreciation: Measuring Real Exchange Rate Interventions," IMF Working Papers 2002/063, International Monetary Fund.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Effective exchange rates; Price and cost competitiveness; Manufacturing and service sector;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:onb:oenbmp:y:2006:i:q4/06:b:5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Rita Glaser-Schwarz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/oenbbat.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.