Martina Vidovic

CEECs Integration into Regional and Global Production Networks

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 goods, and then augment it by including the corresponding imported intermediate products from the OECD together with the usual control variables. Next, we estimate the model for each trade margin (extensive and intensive) separately to evaluate the effects of economic integration on exports and imports of each category of goods. Our results indicate that the CEECs have indeed become more integrated into regional production networks and this has had a positive impact in terms of increasing trade volumes and trade varieties between the two parts of the European continent.

Are the Central East European Countries Pollution Havens

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 countrys environmental regulations may result in pollution havens. Second, we test whether the results differ by industry and by the EU membership tenure (EU-15 vs. the newly added Central East European Countries). An augmented gravity model is estimated using panel data for 21 countries during the period from 1999 to 2013 for the full sample and also separately for the Central East European Countries and the EU-15 members. Our results show weak support for the pollution haven hypothesis for some dirty industries, mainly for net exports from western EU countries to the rest. Instead, support for the “Porter hypothesis” is found for trade in clean goods.