Catching Up and Catch-Up Effect : Economic Growth in Post-Communist Europe (Lessons from the European Union and the Eastern Partnership States)

The article discusses the economic growth models in post-Communist countries of European Union and Eastern Partnership states. According to the combinatorial augmentation concept, there are new combinations for which the resources for old combinations are practically useless as they require the usage of qualitatively new resources. The combinatorial augmentation process revealed itself in the EU's post-Communist countries in a special way when new technologies are mainly concentrated in some Western European and other developed countries while older technologies were mostly left for the EU's post-Communist countries. For the EU's post-Communist countries, falling behind are more characteristic than catching up which is a result of the unfortunate fact that the national innovation systems in these countries are weakly developed. Economic growth types of Eastern Partnership are based on the extremely falling behind model. Excluding the catch-up effect is of special importance in making a quantitative assessment of the differences between the economic growth indicators. The economic growth types of the Eastern Partnership states are not satisfactory – the characteristic to these countries are falling behind (or, more accurately, extremely falling behind) and coat-tail growth