These elements are all relevant for Europe’s competitiveness in a global economy, and the ECB fully supports the Europe 2020 strategy. Today, I would like to focus on the aspect of competitiveness that is internal to Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union, i.e. the euro area.
This study noted, interestingly, that the size of the inflation differentials within the euro area is broadly comparable to that in the United States, although in the United States inflation differentials show somewhat lower persistence over time.