IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/33666.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unit labour costs in Malta: Trends and international comparisons

Author

Listed:
  • Grech, Aaron George

Abstract

Appraisals of international competitiveness are increasingly focusing on unit labour costs. In this paper, a unit labour costs measure is derived for the Maltese economy for the last two decades. In order to take into account structural shifts, separate indices are also derived for the effective cost of labour in the private and Government sectors, and in manufacturing. These series indicate that unit labour costs in the overall economy rose by 2.3% per annum during the twenty years to 2003, and that the increases registered in the private sector and manufacturing were less pronounced. Malta’s overall unit labour costs were estimated to stand at less than two-thirds of those in the EU-15 and the relativity between manufacturing labour costs in Malta and in Europe seems to have remained virtually stable over the last fifteen years. However since 2000, labour productivity has fallen in Malta, while compensation costs in some sectors have remained on the rise, leading to reduced competitiveness.

Suggested Citation

  • Grech, Aaron George, 2004. "Unit labour costs in Malta: Trends and international comparisons," MPRA Paper 33666, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:33666
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/33666/1/MPRA_paper_33666.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aaron G Grech, "undated". "Assessing employment in Malta," CBM Working Papers WP/01/2006, Central Bank of Malta.
    2. Grech, Aaron George, 2003. "Employment and the labour input in the Maltese economy," MPRA Paper 33383, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Mr. Reint Gropp & Ms. Kristina Kostial, 2000. "The Disappearing Tax Base: Is Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Eroding Corporate Income Taxes?," IMF Working Papers 2000/173, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Kostial, Kristina & Gropp, Reint, 2000. "The disappearing tax base: is foreign direct investment eroding corporate income taxes?," Working Paper Series 31, European Central Bank.
    5. van Ark, Bart, 1998. "Productivity," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 171-174, June.
    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. Aaron G Grech, "undated". "The evolution of the Maltese economy since independence," CBM Working Papers WP/05/2015, Central Bank of Malta.
    2. Aaron G. Grech (ed.), 2015. "The evolution of the Maltese Economy since Independence," CBM Ebooks, Central Bank of Malta, edition 1, number 02.

    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. Assaf Razin & Efraim Sadka, 2007. "Productivity and Taxes as Drivers of FDI," Working Papers 172007, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    2. Abdramane Camara, 2023. "The Effect of Foreign Direct Investment on Tax Revenue," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(1), pages 168-190, March.
    3. Frank Barry, 2006. "Foreign direct investment and institutional co-evolution in Ireland," Working Papers 200603, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    4. Muhammad Zakaria & Wen Jun & Arooj Khan, 2023. "Effects Of Capital Inflows On Fiscal Balance In An Emerging Economy: Evidence From Pakistan," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 68(05), pages 1585-1598, September.
    5. Abdramane Camara, 2019. "The effect of foreign direct investment on tax revenue in developing countries," Working Papers hal-03188025, HAL.
    6. Luca Colombo & Paola Labrecciosa & Patrick Paul Walsh, 2005. "Optimal Corporation Tax: An I.O. Approach," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp97, IIIS.
    7. Barry, Frank, 2005. "FDI, transfer pricing and the measurement of R&D intensity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 673-681, June.
    8. Mr. Peter J. Mullins, 2006. "Moving to Territoriality? Implications for the United States and the Rest of the World," IMF Working Papers 2006/161, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Crafts, Nicholas, 2008. "The Celtic Tiger In Historical And International Perspective," Economic Research Papers 269878, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    10. Olgica Glavaški & Emilija Beker Pucar & Marina Beljić & Stefan Stojkov, 2022. "Coordination vs. Competitiveness of Effective Average Tax Rates in Relation to FDI: The Case of Emerging EU Economies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-20, December.
    11. Görg, Holger & Molana, Hassan & Montagna, Catia, 2009. "Foreign direct investment, tax competition and social expenditure," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 31-37, January.
    12. Agnès Bénassy-Quéré & Lionel Fontagné & Amina Lahrèche-Révil, 2005. "How Does FDI React to Corporate Taxation?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(5), pages 583-603, September.
    13. Luo, Changyuan & Luo, Qin & Zeng, Shuai, 2022. "Bilateral tax agreement and FDI inflows: Evidence from Hong Kong investment in the Mainland China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    14. Emmanuel Bretin & Stéphane Guimbert & Thierry Madiès, 2002. "La concurrence fiscale sur le bénéfice des entreprises : théories et pratiques," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 156(5), pages 15-42.
    15. Ludovic Feulefack Kemmanang, 2021. "Do thin capitalization rules crowd out multinational firms in Africa? Looking towards efficiency in revenue mobilization," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(2), pages 594-603.
    16. Brendan M. Walsh, 2003. "Taxation and foreign direct investment in Ireland," Open Access publications 10197/1602, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    17. Vogiatzoglou Klimis, 2018. "Differences in Inward FDI Performance Between the Southern Eurozone and Eastern EU Members: A Panel-Data Analysis Over 2004-2016," Economic Themes, Sciendo, vol. 56(4), pages 519-532, December.
    18. Kenneth G. Stewart & Michael C. Webb, 2003. "Capital Taxation, Globalization, and International Tax Competition," Econometrics Working Papers 0301, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    19. Dukata Radoja, 2017. "The Importance of Professional Training for Establishing Psychological Health Workers," European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 2, ejms_v2_i.
    20. Hirokazu Mizobata & Masaaki Suzuki, 2014. "The Effects of Repatriation Taxes on FDI:Evidence from OECD Multinationals," KIER Working Papers 902, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    unit labour cost; labour productivity; cross-country comparisons; sectoral analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General

    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:pra:mprapa:33666. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.