Integration of CEECs into EU Market: Structural Change and Convergence*

Abstract

The central and eastern European countries (CEECs) have gone through a dramatic process of industrial restructuring in which the Europe Agreements have played a major role. Using detailed statistics, we analyse the transformation of CEECs' export structures and whether it led to structural convergence with the remaining EU members. We also analyse structural transformation within sectors in terms of quality ranges. The results show that, in general terms, CEECs have converged both at inter- and intra-sectoral levels towards pre-existing European Union (EU) members. We discuss whether further restructuring and relocation of CEECs' industrial patterns are probable in the aftermath of EU membership. Copyright (c) 2007 The Author(s); Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Bright Past, Shady Future? Past and Potential Future Export Performance of CEE Countries in a Comparative Perspective

“…In order to control for any possible residual e¤ects of the EU expansion in 2004, we introduce a dummy variable for the period after 2004 for CEE countries. 16 Finally, we also control for time and origin country …xed e¤ects 17 . " it is and i.i.d.…”

“…Since the beginning of the transition process, the export structure of the CEECs'economies has undergone signi…cant changes in terms of increasing shares of medium-and high-tech manufactures and the corresponding decreases in the shares of resource intensive, labour intensive and low-tech manufactures (see Table 2). The export structures of the CEECs show a tendency of gradual convergence with the export structures of the EU-15 both at inter and intra-sectoral (quality upgrading) levels (Crespo and Fontoura, 2007).…”

“…How important has this institutional factor been? The literature suggests that preferential market access, especially the Europe Agreements, provides the transition economies with a competitive edge over suppliers from other countries and has clearly been important for increasing the volume of CEEC trade but has not been directly responsible for much of the growth of their exports (Kaminski, 1994;Kaminski, Wang, and Winters, 1996b;Crespo and Fontoura, 2007). Europe Agreements retained a number of restrictions (delays in liberalizing imports of sensitive products, tight rules of origin, continuing threats of antidumping and the virtual exclusion of agriculture), which were removed only gradually in the process of EU accession.…”

Competition in Tourism Arrivals: A Multidimensional Index of Geographical Structural Similarity

“…As applied there, the purpose is to assess the degree of competition between two export structures for a given market (Crespo & Fontoura, 2007;De Benedictis & Tajoli, 2007;Palan & Schmideberg, 2010; among many others). Such analyses consider measures such as the Finger-Kreinin, the Gini, the Krugman, and the Herfindahl-Hirschman indices (Palan, 2010).…”

Growing Export Performance of Transition Economies: EU Market Access Versus Supply Capacity Factors

“…Since the beginning of the transition process, the export structure of the transition economies has undergone significant structural changes in terms of an increasing share of medium and high skill and technology intensive manufactures and the corresponding decrease in the share of primary commodities, labor intensive and resource based products, and of low skill and technology intensive manufactures (Table 1). CEEC export structures show a tendency of gradual convergence with the export structures of the EU-15 (Crespo and Fontoura, 2007). Here the question is to what extent the structural upgrading of exports has contributed to the growing export performance of CEEC.…”