On a more positive note, recent analyses of highly disaggregated data, at the product and variety level, further show that instead European firms have gained market shares in the high-price and high-quality segment of mature sectors. 1 However, important differences remain with regard to the export performance across individual euro area countries.
Unfavourable price and cost developments thereby often seem to have been a major cause of a weaker export performance. Contrarily, the relatively stronger export performance of Germany appears, to a large extent, be due to very moderate increases in labour costs.