The Role of EU Accession in Economic Development from the International Trade Perspective

Jelena Stanojevic and Gabrijela Velickovic

Economic Alternatives, 2019, issue 3, 412-428

Abstract: According to the comprehensive literature on economic development, international trade is believed to be one of the several catalysts of productivity and growth. As being supported by the core empirical findings, internationally active countries are found to be more productive and to record greater growth rates as compared to those that produce only for the domestic market. The European Union (EU) is an important player in international trade, which has largely contributed to the smooth development of the world trade. Due to greater economic efficiency arising from the lower transaction costs, increased specialization, scale economy and competitive pressure, the EU trade liberalization has made an increasingly significant contribution to economic development of its accessing countries. This paper aims to empirically assess the effects of EU accession and trade openness on economic development of latest 13 EU members (Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovak Republic, Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia). Methods used in the analysis are descriptive statistics, correlation and comparative analysis, and benchmarking. The conducted analysis results confirm the fact that country’s openness to international trade contributes to enhancement of its economic growth given a positive correlation between international trade (export and import) and economic growth.

Keywords: international trade; economic development; EU Accession; EU countries; Transition Economies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F40 F43 F63 O10 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.unwe.bg/uploads/Alternatives/7_S_V_EA_en_i3_2019.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nwe:eajour:y:2019:i:3:p:412-428

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic Alternatives from University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Vanya Lazarova ().