Affiliations: Directorate General for Economics, Statistics and Research, Banca d'Italia, Via Nazionale, Roma, Italy
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Claire Giordano, Economic Outlook Division, Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy Directorate, Directorate General for Economics, Statistics and Research, Banca d'Italia, Via Nazionale 91, 00184 Roma, Italy. Tel.: +39 06 4792 3917; Fax: +39 06 4792 3917; E-mail:[email protected]
Abstract: This paper provides a new set of monthly price-competitiveness indicators
for 62 countries, which are to be adopted by the Bank of Italy as its new
official indicators. We employ updated trade weights that take into
account the highly relevant competitive pressures of local producers in all
outlet markets while guaranteeing a vast geographical coverage in
international standards. We also assess price competitiveness with
respective to different sub-groups of trading partners, namely euro-area vs.
non euro-area countries. Focusing on the four largest economies in the euro
area, in the period 1999-2014 Germany and France's price competitiveness is
found to have improved; it was roughly stable in Italy whereas it
deteriorated in Spain.
Keywords: Real effective exchange rates, price competitiveness, producer prices, local producers' competition, double weighting
