France, Italy, Spain: When product sophistication is low, the constraints related to globalisation are tighter
A country’s product sophistication can be measured by the degree of corporate capital modernisation, the level of labour force skills and the corporate innovation effort. These indicators show that within the euro zone, product sophistication is much lower in France, Italy and Spain than in Germany. This illustrates an important point for economic policy: when a country has low product sophistication, the constraints it faces related to globalisation are tighter: As the price-sensitivity of demand is high when product sophistication is low, a country with low product sophistication must preserve its cost competitiveness and not increase its labour costs too much; For the same reason, a country with low product sophistication cannot have a higher tax burden than other countries when it comes to taxes that affect production costs. For the past ten years, Spain has understood this message whereas France and Italy have not.