The Competitiveness of Turkey with Respect to the Slovak Republic for the 1995-1999 Period

Abstract

This paper examines Turkey’s international cost competitiveness in manufacturing with respect to the Slovak Republic, and quantitatively investigates the relationship between Turkish cost competitiveness and the exports of manufactured goods at an industry level. The Relative Unit Labor Cost (RULC) measure and dynamic panel data techniques are employed for this analysis. We find that Turkey is not competitive with respect to Slovakia for the 1995-1999 period. The Competitiveness of Slovakia mainly depends on its relatively higher level of labor productivity.Manufacturing export; competitiveness; relative unit labor cost; wage; productivity