Importwettbewerb und die Auswirkungen auf die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit von Regionen und Firmen (Import competition and industrial competitiveness: Evidence for the EU and Austria)
Abgeschlossene Forschungsprojekte
Studie von: Österreichisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung
Mit finanzieller Unterstützung von: Jubiläumsfonds der Oesterreichischen Nationalbank
Abgeschlossen: 2020
Forschungsbereich:Industrie-, Innovations- und internationale Ökonomie
Sprache:Deutsch
Import competition and industrial competitiveness: Evidence for the EU and Austria
International trade is generally seen by economists as a vehicle to accelerate productivity growth and employment in all trading
countries, and to benefit consumers in each country via greater product variety. However, under certain conditions the benefits
of trade may not be equally shared. In recent years criticism has mounted in the USA that import competition from China would
hurt US manufacturing employment and holds back US innovation in manufacturing industries. David Autor and co-authors provided
evidence for such negative effects of foreign competition on regional employment in the USA. Evidence from the USA, however,
can hardly be transferred to Europe due to differences in industrial structures and technological capabilities. It remains
unclear if and how the competitiveness of Austrian manufacturing firms, employment and wage dynamics were affected by import
competition in the past decade. We study the resilience of firms and regions (or possibly the lack thereof) to import competition
from BRICS and especially China in Europe, and also pay special attention to the Austrian situation. The analyses cover the
regional level (NUTS 2 in Europe and NUTS 4 in Austria), the industry and the firm level. The analysis at the EU level allows
putting the results for Austria into a broader perspective. The research team is able to draw on a wealth of data that allows
exploring the impact of foreign competition on Europe and Austria in a variety of ways. The data sets proposed include unique
micro-data on strategies of Austrian manufacturing firms and unique data sets that allow the analysis of EU regions at a fine
level of sectoral disaggregation.