DATA OF: ABSOLUTE COST ADVANTAGE AND SECTORAL COMPETITIVENESS: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM NAFTA AND THE EUROPEAN UNION

Following the theory of absolute cost advantage, our aim is to verify the hypothesis that, during 2000-2014, the real exchange rates (REERs) of the German and the US manufacturing sectors vis-à-vis their EU-28 and NAFTA partners, respectively, have been governed by the relative vertically integrated unit labour costs (RVIULCs) and the intrasectoral gap of the rate of profit (Rs). Using panel cointegration techniques, we elaborate three econometric models. The first for the NAFTA countries, where the United States (US) is taken as the reference (national) country; the second for the EU-28 with Germany as the national country; the third one agglutinates NAFTA and EU-28, where we consider US as the national country. The results suggest that there exists a stable long-run relationship between REERs, RVIULCs and Rs. Furthermore, cointegration vectors show that the competitiveness of both US and German manufacturing sectors is positively associated with the decrease in unit costs of production, while it is negatively related to the increase in the intrasectoral profitability gap.

本研究遵循绝对成本优势（absolute cost advantage）理论，旨在验证如下假说：在2000-2014年期间，德国制造业部门相对于欧盟28国（EU-28）伙伴国、美国制造业部门相对于北美自由贸易区（North American Free Trade Agreement，NAFTA）伙伴国的实际有效汇率（Real Effective Exchange Rates，REERs），分别由相对垂直整合单位劳动成本（Relative Vertically Integrated Unit Labour Costs，RVIULCs）与部门内部利润率差距（Rs）所决定。本研究采用面板协整技术（panel cointegration techniques），构建了三个计量模型（econometric models）：第一个模型针对NAFTA成员国，以美国作为基准（本国）国；第二个模型针对EU-28成员国，以德国作为基准（本国）国；第三个模型合并了NAFTA与EU-28两类样本，此时以美国作为基准（本国）国。研究结果表明，实际有效汇率、相对垂直整合单位劳动成本与部门内部利润率差距之间存在稳定的长期均衡关系。进一步的协整向量分析显示，美国与德国制造业部门的竞争力均与单位生产成本的下降呈正相关，而与部门内部利润率差距的扩大呈负相关。