European export performance

Using an econometric shift-share decomposition, we explain the redistribution of world market shares at the level of the product variety and by technological content. We decompose changes in market shares into structural effects (geographical and sectoral) and a pure performance effect. We regard the EU-27 as an integrated economy, excluding intra-EU trade. Revisiting the competitiveness issue in such a perspective sheds new light on the impact of emerging countries on the reshaping of world trade. Since 1995 the EU-27 withstood the competition from emerging countries better than the United States and Japan. The EU market shares for high-technology products, as well as in the upper price range of the market, proved comparatively resilient, though less so since the crisis. Copyright Kiel Institute 2014