Guy Maugis, chairman of the Franco-German chamber of commerce, points out that when France wants to do something to improve competitiveness it starts with top-down decisions in Paris; the new bank is a case in point.
To maintain competitiveness, it is necessary to improve the shop performance, i.e. fabrication cycle time.
Although this medical school attempted to reduce competitiveness it does not seem to have eliminated it completely.
It does not want to bear bigger liabilities, it wants to set an example of budget discipline, it refuses to compromise its competitiveness, it is allergic to inflation, it does not want the ECB to print money and it thinks Eurobonds create moral hazard.There is little sign that the chancellor, Angela Merkel, is ready to do much beyond tweaking the firewall and pushing through the fiscal compact.
According to Philip Chitty, an economist at ABN Amro, this suggests that Italy may have locked the lire into the euro at too high an exchange rate.Traditionally, when Italy wanted to restore its competitiveness, it devalued its currency.
But such was the contagious nature of the excitement it did not matter: everyone became so caught up in the ding-dong, end-to-end competitiveness, it has become a sporting equivalent of President Kennedy's assassination, a where-were-you-when-you-saw-it moment.
Indeed, rich countries may not be able to compete with rivals offering low-cost products and services if they do not learn to innovate better and faster.But even if innovation is the key to global competitiveness, it is not necessarily a zero sum game.
It is feasible that the insertion capability in technological networks is a powerful intangible asset to competitiveness, and it is able to provide knowledge of new markets for products and services to innovations and new business practices (Elfring & Hulsink, 2003).
"When we're in a monetary union and you need to restore your competitiveness, it is necessary to have the equivalent of an internal devaluation.
When wages are being squeezed to regain export competitiveness, it is hard to sell the idea of higher energy prices, particularly when the rest of the world is doing too little to cut greenhouse gases.
