CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Mirguseinova, Elmira |
|---|---|
| Title | Estimating the Benefits of EU Membership for Central and Eastern European Countries Using Synthetic Control Method |
| Summary | Benefits of the European Union membership have been receiving a lot of attention in the current political climate. With some countries still planning to join the Union and others already leaving (the United Kingdom), good quality empirical research is key to an informed political debate. Such analysis is, however, scarce (particularly for Central and Eastern European countries), mainly due to the challenges that traditional statistical methods face in providing reliable causal estimates for these questions, especially in absence of good counterfactuals. Synthetic Control Method used in this thesis attempts to overcome the issue by constructing synthetic counterfactuals for Central and Eastern European countries from the most similar economies outside of the Union. This, in turn, allows for more reliable causal estimates of the benefits of the latter. According to the results of the analysis, the Baltic States might have benefited the most from EU membership, both before and after the financial crisis. Czech Republic followed a similar path but with somewhat lower overall positive impacts, as the income convergence theory would predict. Poland also experienced some benefits but only during and after the financial crisis (mainly by avoiding it). Bulgaria and Romania, on the other hand, did not show any significant EU membership effects, and neither did Hungary. Croatia was the only country to demonstrate negative impact. These results are also supplemented by a deeper analysis of the main causes that gave rise to such differences, and policy recommendation for the future. |
| Supervisor | Bokros, Lajos |
| Department | Economics MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/mirguseinova_elmira.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University