France: “the debate on the competitiveness differential between France and Germany is simplistic and does not take account of non-price factors” (Eric Heyer)

Eric Heyer.  The competitiveness of an economy can be assessed based on factor which I would divide between price factors and non-price factors.  The latter are crucial and numerous.  There’s the size of companies, therefore their ability to sell abroad, employees’ training level, or the quality of networks developed abroad, among other things.  However, since these factors are hard to quantify, debates have focused in price factors such as working time or unitary wage costs.  This leads to comparing the productivity of businesses and the measure of this productivity.  Thus, debates are on only one side of things and are not necessarily a sufficient indicator to assess an economy’s dynamics.