Competitiveness of Greece and Portugal before the Eurozone debt crisis

The topic of this bachelor thesis is the competitiveness of two selected Eurozone countries. Selected countries are Greece and Portugal. The bachelor thesis is divided into two main parts. The first part is theoretical and focuses on the definition of different concepts. The concepts defined in this thesis are competitiveness, in particular macroeconomic competitiveness, productivity, labour productivity and unit labour costs. The theoretical part also includes an introduction to the international institution evaluating the global competitiveness index, which is the World Economic Forum. In the practical part of the thesis, the competitiveness of the two countries is first analysed by means of a comparative analysis of real labour productivity per person employed and nominal unit labour costs. Subsequently, both countries are analysed in terms of their positioning within the World Economic Forum's international publication assessing the competitiveness of countries, The Global Competitiveness Report.