The triggers of competitiveness

This conference drew largely on the empirical results from the EFIGE project based on an original survey to 15,000 manufacturing companies in 7 EU Member States and will compare them with pre-existing results. It was intended to make original empirical evidence available to the policy community to foster an evidence-based policy discussion on competitiveness dynamics in the EU and on ways to improve country performance.

Several issues were addressed in consecutive sessions:

1) What impedes internationalization? What is the role of investment, R&D and innovation? Under which conditions are they more effective in boosting export growth?

2) What are the competitiveness problems of the South of Europe compared with the North of Europe? Who are the exporters? What factors contribute to the share of exporting firms in each country? How did the Great Recession impact on firms?

3) How are firms financing innovation? To what extent have credit constraints been a limit on productivity-enhancing investment?

4) How to reconcile micro data and macro developments in competitiveness? What indicators should policy-makers look at in order to identify problem-areas? To what extent does firms’ innovation and export capacity depend on the institutional context in which they operate? Are there common policy recommendations?

Event materials

• Agenda of the event here
• Summary of the event here

Presentations

• Welcoming remarks by Jean Pisani-Ferry, Director of Bruegel here
• Speech by Luc Coene, Governor of the National Bank of Belgium here

Session 1

• Carlo Altomonte, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Investing to compete: what are the bottlenecks? Evidence from EFIGE here
• Mathieu Crozet, Price vs. Quality Competitiveness here
• Filippo di Mauro - Discussion here

Session 2

• Giorgio Barba Navaretti, The global operation of European firms: something to learn on South vs. North Europe here
• Laszlo Halpern, The Impact of the Crisis on European Firms here
• Gianmarco Ottaviano - Discussion here
• Patrick Pelata - A few remarks using the case of auto industry here

Session 3

• Fabiano Schivardi, Financing innovation: the role of innovation and financial systems in shaping competitive advantages here

Policy debate

• Anton Garcia-Diaz, Spanish competitiveness: where is the problem and how to fix it? here

Photos