Competitiveness, strategies and business performance: an application to the euro zone.

Summary This thesis examines the determinants of divergent trade performance within the euro zone through four empirical studies. The first study examines the impact of specializations on export performance, using a dynamic study of comparative advantages and a constant market share analysis. The second introduces an extended measure of structural competitiveness into the modeling of traditional export equations through the study of a composite competitiveness indicator. The third part studies the link between foreign direct investment and trade performance in the Eurozone countries through heterogeneous panel causality tests and gravity equations. Finally, the last part of this thesis looks at the internationalization strategies of production and their consequences on the trade performance of countries through the study of the behavior of European car manufacturers. Germany's better performance is not only due to its cost competitiveness. Increased product innovation, infrastructure, a policy of reducing costs for its companies through privileged access to credit and an advantageous tax policy, combined with increased fragmentation of its production, explain its "outperformance" on the world market. On the contrary, French companies have suffered from rising labor costs in the country, but also from the lack of innovation in their products and from their strategies of total relocation of production.