Changing Patterns of Export of Goods versus Macroeconomic Competitiveness. A Comparative Analysis for East-Central European Countries in the Period 2000-2011

The paper discusses existing links between changing patterns of export of goods broken down by technology-intensity versus macroeconomic competitiveness. The study covers nine East-Central European economies: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovak Republic, in the time span 2000-2011. We hypothesize on discovering strong, positive and statistically significant relationship between flows of export of high-tech and ICTs manufactures goods, and level of macroeconomic competitiveness (approximated by Global Competitiveness Index – GCI, see: World Economic Forum). Our methodological approach relies on elaboration of country's individual export patterns with regard to industries of different technology-intensity, and statistical analysis between macroeconomic GCI variable and variables identifying shares in total export of certain industries. Reversely to what was initially expected, our empirical results do not seem to support the hypothesis on statistically positive links between growing shares of high-tech and ICT manufactures industries in total value of export versus Global Competitiveness Index, in analyzed countries