Suchergebnisse

AbstractIn this paper, we look at the role of export composition in the growth process, considering how increased similarity in trade structure among countries can induce catching‐up in income levels in a group of countries in transition. We analyze the sectoral export patterns of the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) by comparing them to those of the current members of the European Union (EU), focusing on countries' specialization as suppliers for the EU market, and we assess whether similar export patterns foster the catching‐up process of the CEECs. Our main result is that similarity in export composition has a positive, significant and non‐linear impact on catching‐up, and seems to be driven by the growth of the main export market and delocalization of production more than by other factors.

Abstract
The paper shows how - using as an example the trade flows between eleven European countries and 31 OECD `reporting' countries - the result of a gravity model, in terms of potential trade, changes substantially when country heterogeneity and dynamics are taken into account.
Comparing the in-sample trade potential index derived from various estimators yields three different results: (a) the average trade potential index poorly represents the distribution of yearly trade potentials; (b) the index converges towards the demarcation value corresponding to the equality between observed and predicted trade flows when country heterogeneity and dynamics are taken into account; (c) the sign of its yearly average is not the right statistic with which to determine the (in)existence of unrealized trade potentials.
Finally, the index derived from a dynamic specification with multilateral fixed-effects is better able to reflect the role played by the time-variant country-specific unobservable element associated with the possible presence of positive or negative trade potentials.