Vertical Intra-Industry Trade, Technology and Income Distribution: A Panel Data Analysis of EU Trade with Central-East European Countries

This article tests a Heckscher-Ohlin framework versus a neo-Ricardian framework for explaining vertical intra-industry trade. The study applies panel techniques with instrument variables to analyse trade between 'old' EU and 10 Central-East European countries in their transition period. Results show country-pair fixed effects to be of high relevance for explaining vertical intra-industry trade. Technology differences are positively, while differences in factor endowment measured in GDP per capita, are negatively correlated with vertical intra-industry trade, and confirm the relevance of the neo-Ricardian framework. In addition, changing bilateral differences in personal income distribution during the transition of Central-East European countries towards a market economy contribute to changes in vertical intra-industry trade

Determinants of intra-industry trade between East and West Europe

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:3597.9512(1721) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Dimensions of quality upgrading - Evidence from CEECs

The impact of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies' trade integration with European markets on CEE trade structures has been studied extensively. These studies frequently observe a quality upgrading of CEE exports. In this paper we consider three dimensions of quality upgrading: upgrading across industries, upgrading across different quality segments within industries and, finally, product upgrading within quality segments inside industries. For the analysis we partition industries into quality segments based on EU-15 import unit values. The results for ten CEE countries (comprising the CEE-5, the Baltics and South East Europe) and thirteen industries suggest fundamental differences, both across country groups and across the three different notions of quality upgrading. The CEE-5 show no evidence of entering a 'low-quality trap' in all three dimensions. By contrast, while there is a general catching-up process across industries and inside quality segments, the second notion of low-quality specialization may be applicable within the high-tech industries to the performance for the Baltics and South East Europe as a group

New borders: Evidence from the former Soviet Union

F14, F15, P21,