Estrategia de devaluación interna y su impacto en la competitividad: España, 2008-2013

Abstract

The competitiveness's discussion has taken a central place in the academic debate as a result of productive divergences, and consequently, the trade imbalances that characterize the economies of the Eurozone. Understanding that currency devaluation is not possible within euro framework, the alternative to reduce the competitiveness gap between these economies is driven through internal adjustment processes in economies with trade deficits. Therefore, policy discussions have focused on analyses of unit labour costs.

This paper addresses the reasoning process that establishes the relation between labour costs and competitiveness in the case of the Spanish manufacturing industry in the period between 2008 and 2013. The main conclusion of this research is that there is no clear relationship between the behavior of labour costs and the improvement in commercial activity.