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AbstractThis paper focuses on intra‐industry trade (IIT) between Central, Eastern and South‐Eastern European (CESEE) countries and the EU‐15. It assesses the determinants of intra‐industry trade by combining a detailed product‐level (HS‐6) trade‐flow database with country‐level structural, monetary and institutional variables. Estimates are obtained with System‐GMM and dynamic fractional response models. Our results suggest that structural factors driving IIT differ in the region, notably perceptions of corruption and the distance in the stock of physical capital from the EU‐15. On the other hand, nominal variables such as the competitiveness of corporate taxation and the flexibility of exchange rate regimes contribute to the increase in intra‐industry trade in the whole region.

The rapid increase in intra-industry trade (IIT) between the EU15 and Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European (CESEE) countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union indicates a structural change in the nature of trade in CESEE and a new process of transition and real convergence to the EU. Using a product-level trade flows database and employing linear and non-linear panel data specifications, this paper assesses the determinants of intra-industry trade between the EU15 as the main trading block and CESEE, which are further divided into the 'new' EU member states (NMS) and the EU candidate countries and potential candidates (CCPC). The analysis highlights the importance of intra-industry trade in terms of achieving real convergence. The paper finds that there exist some common factors driving IIT across the sample, such as the corporate tax rate, the flexibility of exchange rate regimes and the quality of political institutions. However, the determinants of IIT between NMS and EU15 countries deviate considerably from those between CCPC and EU15 countries.

As the current financial crisis has shown, macroeconomic imbalances such as persistent current account and trade deficits, can seriously undermine a country's resilience to economic shocks. Maintaining and enhancing external competitiveness has thus become of increasing concern, particularly to European Union (EU) candidate countries whose economic growth models have been challenged in recent years. Drawing on previous studies, this paper assesses developments in the external competitiveness of EU candidate countries between 1999 and 2011. Taking a broad approach to the issue of competitiveness, the paper considers various indicators of both short and long-term competitiveness, including those related to domestic prices and costs, export performance, and institutional and structural issues. In the context of EU integration, comparisons are drawn with developments in the EU12. We find that, during the pre-crisis period, all candidate countries experienced robust export market growth, but also suffered losses in price and cost competitiveness. In terms of export characteristics, progress has been heterogeneous and also fairly slow when compared with the EU12. All candidate countries have increased their number of export products and trading partners, but only a few have been able to export more complex products. As regards structural issues such as corruption and bureaucratic efficiency, all countries have performed quite poorly with the exception of Iceland.

We estimate a multivariate early-warning model to assess the usefulness of private credit and other macro-financial variables in predicting banking sector vulnerabilities. Using data for 23 European countries, we find that global variables and in particular global credit growth are strong predictors of domestic vulnerabilities. Moreover, domestic credit variables also have high predictive power, but should be complemented by other macro-financial indicators like house price growth and banking sector capitalization that play a salient role in predicting vulnerabilities. Our findings can inform decisions on the activation of macroprudential policy measures and suggest that policy makers should take a broad approach in the analytical models that support risk identification and calibration of tools.

This paper assesses the usefulness of private credit variables and other macrofinancial and banking sector indicators for the setting of Basel III / CRD IV countercyclical capital buffers (CCBs) in a multivariate early warning model framework, using data for 23 EU Members States from 1982 Q2 to 2012 Q3. We find that in addition to credit variables, other domestic and global financial factors such as equity and house prices as well as banking sector variables help to predict vulnerable states of the economy in EU Member States. We therefore suggest that policy makers take a broad approach in their analytical models supporting CCB policy measures.