Continuado daqui.
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Seguem-se alguns trechos de um artigo escrito por funcionários do Asian Development Bank nas Filipinas.
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Trata-se do artigo em que mais fielmente me revejo e que ilustra as ideias que tenho defendido neste blogue desde há vários anos acerca do futuro para a indústria portuguesa.
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"Current discussions about the need to reduce unit labor costs (especially through a significant reduction in nominal wages) in some countries of the eurozone (in particular, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) to exit the crisis may not be a panacea. (Moi ici: Também não acredito nesta panaceia, já em 2006)
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First, historically, there is no relationship between the growth of unit labor costs and the growth of output. This is a well-established empirical result, known in the literature as Kaldor’s paradox. Second, construction of unit labor costs using aggregate data (standard practice) is potentially misleading. Unit labor costs calculated with aggregate data are not just a weighted average of the firms’ unit labor costs. Third, aggregate unit labor costs reflect the distribution of income between wages and profits. This has implications for aggregate demand that have been neglected. Of the 12 countries studied, the labor share increased in one (Greece), declined in nine, and remained constant in two. We speculate that this is the result of the nontradable sectors gaining share in the overall economy. Also, we construct a measure of competitiveness called unit capital costs as the ratio of the nominal profit rate to capital productivity. This has increased in all 12 countries.
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We conclude that a large reduction in nominal wages will not solve the problem that some countries of the eurozone face. (Moi ici: As economias europeias não podem competir pelos custos mais baixos e quem defende essa medida não faz ideia da diferença entre os salários europeus e os asiáticos) If this is done, firms should also acknowledge that unit capital costs have increased significantly and thus also share the adjustment cost. Barring solutions such as an exit from the euro, the solution is to allow fiscal policy to play a larger role in the eurozone, and to make efforts to upgrade the export basket to improve competitiveness with more advanced countries.(Moi ici: A solução que apresentamos neste blogue há anos!!!) This is a long-term solution that will not be painless, (Moi ici: É estudar o exemplo do calçado em Portugal, quantos anos demorou, quantos empregos se perderam, que alternativas genéricas tiveram resultado) but one that does not require a reduction in nominal wages."
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Abstract do artigo "Unit Labor Costs in the Eurozone: The Competitiveness Debate Again" de Jesus Felipe e Utsav Kumar.
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"Unit labor costs are defined as the ratio of a worker’s total compensation, or money-wage (i.e., the nominal wage rate plus all other labor-related costs to the firm such as payments in-kind related to labor services, social security, severance and termination pay, and employers’ contributions to pension schemes, casualty, and life insurance, and workers compensation, and, in some cases, payroll taxes as well as fringe benefits taxes, etc.), to labor productivity. Assuming the numerator is measured in euros per worker and the denominator is measured in numbers of pencils per worker, the unit labor cost is measured in euros per pencil (i.e., total labor cost per unit of output, or the cost in terms of labor for the products we get)" (Moi ici: Mas nada nos diz quanto ao tipo, qualidade, atributos e preço de venda dos lápis)
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"If we increase the number of products exported with revealed comparative advantage to the top 100 most complex, Germany’s exports of these products represent 18% of world exports, against Ireland’s 0.81%, Spain’s 0.89%, Greece’s 0.02%, and Portugal’s 0.04%. Finally, while German exports are concentrated in the most-complex products of the complexity scale (the top 100 most complex products represent 7.93% of the country’s total exports), and as the complexity level declines, the shares become smaller (the least-complex export group represents 3.5% of Germany’s exports); in the case of Greece and Portugal, their exports are concentrated in the least-complex groups (33.1% and 21.7%, respectively, of their total exports belong to the least-complex group), and their export shares (by complexity groups) are similar to those of China. If China were the correct comparator, then perhaps
the situation of the European countries would be significantly worse.
We believe that this is where the real problem of the peripheral countries lies.
Their lack of competitiveness vis-à-vis Germany is not due to the fact that they are expensive (their wage rates are substantially lower), or that labor productivity has not increased. The problem is that they are stuck at middle levels of technology and they are caught in a trap. Reducing wages would not solve the problem."
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"significant efforts to upgrade. Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain should look upward and try to move in the direction of Germany, and not in that of China. The real problem is one of lack of nonprice competitiveness vis-à-vis Germany.
Spain and Italy are ahead of the other three countries, and closer to Germany. Though Ireland has a very sophisticated export package, its level of diversification is low. Greece and Portugal are well below the other three and face a more precarious situation."
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Seguem exemplos de postais escritos ao longo dos anos e que estão em sintonia com as conclusões deste artigo:
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