Anca Voicu

• PhD
• Professor at Rollins College

This paper focuses on the 2004 enlargement of the European Union to the East and treats it as a natural experiment to investigate two issues: first, whether there has been a trade creation effect in final and intermediate goods and second, to what extent this effect has been more pronounced for final or for intermediate goods. Using difference‐in‐d...

While previous chapters have concentrated on trade-related issues (including foreign direct investment and institutions with global values), we now consider the inter-dependencies that exist between foreign trade, European integration, economic development and structural change within the common framework of transition. The performance of Central a...

History is important in order to understand the trade-related issues that confronted the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) immediately after 1989 as well as the past and current standing of their trade relations with the world outside the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), a body that governed trade relations between the co...

Since planned economies were relatively autarkic, none of them traded extensively with the capitalist outside world. During the transition, as trade relationships widened internationally, these economies also went through a process of creating new institutions and organizations that required new skills and attitudes more relevant to the global trad...

Since planned economies were relatively autarkic, none of them traded extensively with the capitalist outside world. During the transition, as trade relationships widened internationally, these economies also went through a process of creating new institutions and organizations that required new skills and attitudes more relevant to the global trad...

In this chapter, unlike the others, we employ the broadest definition of the CEECs since we are analyzing trade flows and structures in the widest possible geographical sense. Since trade interrelationships are complex and multilateral, it is but natural to take a wider definition than we have hitherto employed. It also facilitates data collection...

This chapter discusses briefly the transition journey that Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) have travelled in the last two to three decades. It mentions the faltering early years, the sunk costs of transition, the transformation into maturing upper-income countries, the expansion of trade as well as the process of integration with the...

The transition decade of the 1990s was characterized by a dramatic rise in exports, which rose steadily during 1990–1995 but then doubled in the latter half of the decade (see Table 8.33.1). Germany’s share, as the leading economy of the European Union, doubled during the whole period, while the advanced economies of the European Union came to hold...

Overall, the gravity trade results above show that the CEECs had higher potential than actual in terms of trade with the developed economies of the European Union. They were not fulfilling their potential with developed Western Europe in the first phase of transition. As we shall see in later chapters, the position gets reversed by the end of trans...

This chapter provides a brief summary of the issues discussed in the main body of the book. It also gives a perspective on future trends, particularly in terms of productivity, innovation and technology, which is how future trade expansion and technological progress could impact on economic growth and development in the CEECs.

This book examines the evolution of trade and trade patterns in Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) and assesses the implications of these patterns on structural change and economic development within transition economies. Taking the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 as a starting point, the authors discuss the transition of former communi...

The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between environmental stringency and intra–European Union (EU) trade flows. Two main hypotheses are tested. First, we test whether the stringency of a country's environmental regulations may result in pollution havens. Second, we test whether the results differ by industry and by the EU mem...

There is considerable dissatisfaction in the profession regarding the teaching of macroeconomics after the financial crisis. The ?Great Recession? highlighted the inadequacy of traditional macroeconomic modelling, based on real business cycle theory and rational expectations, to appropriately explain why the contraction world-wide was so widespread...

We study the effect on trade in intermediates and final goods of the Central East European Countries’ (CEECs) accession into the European Union (EU) for the period 1999-2009. In doing so, we estimate a gravity model that incorporates the extensive margin of trade and accounts for firm heterogeneity. We capture the importance of production networks...

There is considerable dissatisfaction in the profession regarding the teaching of macroeconomics after the financial crisis. The ‘Great Contraction’ highlighted the inadequacy of traditional macroeconomic modelling, based on real business cycle theory and rational expectations, to appropriately explain why the contraction world-wide was so widespre...

The paper uses a gravity trade model to examine the impact of corruption on bilateral trade using a data set comprising OECD economies, new EU members and developing nations. Although the level of corruption of both the importing and exporting nations does hinder cross-border transactions, differences between their ethical standards do have a negat...

The paper uses a gravity model to examine the role of corruption in the direction of trade in a data set comprising OECD economies, new EU members and developing nations. Contrary to a number of studies, the findings suggest that membership of the RTAs does not always increase bilateral trade whereas reducing a country's corruption does tend to inc...

where ED denotes environmental degradation for country i and year t (this term includes the pollutants that are analyzed: per capita emissions of SO2, per capita emissions of CO2, and per capita energy consumption). GDP is gross domestic product per capita, TRADE is the trade intensity (the sum of exports and imports divided by GDP) and εit is the...

This paper examines the involvement of the CEECs into regional and global production networks over the period 1999 to 2009. We employ a theoretically justified gravity model which incorporates the extensive margin of trade and accounts for firm heterogeneity. We first estimate the model for highly disaggregated exports (SITC 5-digits) in final good...

This paper examines the effect of the two most recent European Union enlargements on CEECs trade of intermediate and final products separately. A theoretically justified gravity model which incorporates the extensive margin of trade and accounts for firm heterogeneity is estimated using highly disaggregated trade data for the period 1999 to 2009. W...

All advanced countries experienced a sharp decline in the volume of exports during the interwar period. With the onset of the Great Depression, beggar-thy-neighbour policies were introduced to restrict international trade in the hope of maintaining domestic employment. While focusing mainly on the UK, this paper investigates the export trade perfor...

This paper examines the involvement of the CEECs into regional and global production networks on two different levels. First, we focus on the effects of production networks on the two margins of trade with the EU and on trade with the rest of the OECD countries. We expect to find that trade in intermediates has increased more with EU countries that...

In 2004 and 2007 the EU increased its number by allowing former transition economies to become members. This paper builds upon our previous work (Horsewood & Voicu, 2006 and Horsewood & Voicu 2007) and investigates the trade relationships of the new entrants using aggregate trade data. The analysis will use quarterly data and aims to examine if com...

Micro-foundations for the well-known gravity trade model are investigated. A new framework is adopted, together with assumptions that while strong are rather less restrictive than those typically employed in this context, thus enabling rather more complex and interesting results to be obtained than are available in the literature.

With the competitiveness of UK manufacturing declining steadily during the interwar period, the UK government responded by introducing the General Tariff in February 1932 in an attempt to halt the increase in unemployment and the deterioration of the current account. This paper focuses formally on UK aggregate imports in the inter-War years, by est...

A gravity model is used to examine the direction of exports of OECD countries, EU entrants and OECD countries. Given the redirection of exports by transition economies, cross section analysis was undertaken for years in the 1990s and 2000s and the effects of preferential agreements between trade blocs were quantified. The uncertainty of bilateral t...

A standard gravity model is estimated on a data set comprising the new EU entrants and OECD countries. Given the redirection of exports by transition economies, cross section analysis was undertaken for years in the 1990s and 2000s and the effects of preferential agreements between trade blocs were quantified. When the gravity model was augmented b...