Eleftherios Spyromitros

What Drives Greek Exports Performance? A Macrolevel Analysis

Τhis paper attempts to highlight the main determinants of Greek export performance over the period 2004–2014. Our empirical analysis shows that unit labor costs and long-term rates negatively affect exports to Eurozone countries. Additionally, exchange rates and unit labor costs seem to be crucial for exports to non-Eurozone countries. Summarizing our results, economic uncertainty is an important drawback for exports to Eurozone countries offsetting the positive effect of reduced labor costs on export performance. Moreover, the clear upward trend of exports to non-Eurozone countries seems to be related both to the reduction of unit labor costs and the devaluation of euro. The need to stimulate growth through a number of reforms in the labor, and goods and services markets is of great importance, absorbing the collapse of domestic demand and redirecting production and capital to tradable goods.