Energy Prices and Competitiveness in the Manufacturing Sector

Amann, Juergen and Cantore, Nicola (2025): Energy Prices and Competitiveness in the Manufacturing Sector. Forthcoming in: Contribution to Economics: Food-Energy-Water Nexus – Integrated Challenges and Global Perspectives (2026)

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between energy prices and manufacturing competitiveness at the industry level. Drawing on panel data spanning the mid-1990s to the 2010s from an extensive multi-sector dataset, we shed light on the nonlinear dynamics between energy prices and the sector-level performance of manufacturing industries. Our findings link to ongoing work on the effect of energy prices on firm-level performance by highlighting considerable sector-specific heterogeneity, indicating the complex and intricate relationship between economic performance and the cost of energy.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Energy prices; competitiveness; manufacturing
• Subjects: L - Industrial Organization > L6 - Industry Studies: Manufacturing; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics

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