TY - BOOK ID - 84541153 TI - Towards a System of Multilateral Unit Labor Cost-Based Competitiveness Indicators for Advanced, Developing, and Transition Countries AU - Turner, Anthony. AU - Golub, Stephen. PY - 1997 SN - 1462311539 1452703795 1283563290 9786613875747 1451902115 PB - Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, DB - UniCat KW - Finance: General KW - Foreign Exchange KW - Labor KW - International Financial Markets KW - Economic History: Financial Markets and Institutions: General, International, or Comparative KW - Comparative Studies of Countries KW - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: General KW - General Financial Markets: General (includes Measurement and Data) KW - Labour KW - income economics KW - Currency KW - Foreign exchange KW - Finance KW - Labor costs KW - Exchange rates KW - Competition KW - Real exchange rates KW - Real effective exchange rates KW - Financial markets KW - United States KW - Income economics UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:84541153 AB - This paper attempts to extend the range of countries covered by the IMF’s multilateral real exchange rate indexes based on relative unit labor costs (REER-ULCs) in manufacturing. A data set was assembled that permits calculation of REER-ULCs for 23 newly industrialized, developing, and transition countries in addition to the 21 industrial countries covered by the current system. Although the results are mostly quite encouraging, they should be considered preliminary because of uncertainty about the reliability and comparability of the underlying data. Also, unit labor costs are not available on as timely a basis as consumer price indexes (CPIs), especially for nonindustrial countries. Thus, the ULC-based indicators should supplement rather than replace the current CPI-based system. ER -