How has France’s “non-cost competitiveness” changed over time?

Non-cost competitiveness refers to all the determinants of competitiveness that are not production costs or prices: the level of product sophistication and quality, capacity to manufacture products in high demand, etc. To measure it, we look at the proportion of the change over time in France’s export market shares (either overall or with the euro zone as a whole) that is not explained by production costs. We then look at a few possible explanatory factors of non-cost competitiveness: automation, labour force skills, development of new technologies, etc. The decline in France’s non-cost competitiveness explains a 1.5 percentage point fall since 1995 in France’s market share in global trade (currently 2.8%) and a 3.5 percentage point fall in its share of euro-zone exports (currently 11%).