Market Competitiveness After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis: A History of European Trends

Market competitiveness has been profoundly affected by the international financial crisis that hit all economies in almost the entire world in 2008. More than fifteen years have passed and the scenarios have changed. The 2008 crisis was followed by the pandemic crisis; the pandemic crisis was followed by the energy crisis and the Russian-Ukrainian war; and the latter was followed by the conflict in the Middle East. All these events have affected the competitiveness of companies, generally in a negative sense, causing increases in costs (energy, transport, raw materials, etc.) as well as contractions in demand. In light of these premises, the research aims to reconstruct the trend assumed in the last twenty years by some variables, representative of the competitiveness of companies, with particular regard to the European Union.