Determinants of Growth and Convergence in Transitive Economies in the 1990s: Empirical Evidence from a Panel Data

This paper empirically examines the determinants of economic growth and convergence in transitive economies of Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. While the cross-section regression suggests the absence of a significant convergence across the EU15 and other transitive economies, the Visegrad four (Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) dummy being positive and significant indicates that this group of countries has done relatively better than the other group of transitive economies. Moreover, the results indicate that there was an income per capita convergence within Visegrad countries. Switching to a panel data approach, and controlling for macroeconomic stability, financial development, human and physical capital accumulations and other policy variables, the results seem to suggest that there was a conditional convergence across EU15 and transitive economies in the 1990s.