Freigegebene Gutachten
European competitiveness report 2004
Czarnitzki, Dirk, Andreas Fier, Oliver Heneric, Katrin Hussinger, Georg Licht, Elisabeth Müller und Wolfgang Sofka (2004), European competitiveness report 2004, Competitiveness and benchmarking, European Commission, Brussels. Download
This is the eighth edition of the Commission’s Report on European Competitiveness since the
1994 Industry Council Resolution that established the basis for the Competitiveness Report.
As in recent editions, competitiveness in this Report is understood to mean a sustained rise in
the standards of living of a nation and as low a level of involuntary unemployment possible.
The special theme of this Report concerns the impact of public policies on economic
performance. Both because of its size and of its involvement in economic life the public
sector exerts an important influence on economic performance. The first three Chapters of the
Report review the impact of the public sector on productivity growth, the role of public sector
funding in research and development and the performance of the health sector, a key
component of the public sector. The following, Chapter 4, reviews recent developments in the
European automotive sector, a key sector in Europe’s industrial structure, where government
regulation is significant and where competitiveness improvements have been realized in
recent years. The final, Chapter 5, discusses the growing integration of China in the world
economy and its implications for the European economy. These implications are most
pronounced in the case of the new Member States which are increasingly competing with
Chinese exports.
