Sunday, October 11, 2009: 9:00 AM
In 2004 and 2007 the EU increased its number by allowing former transition economies to become members. This paper builds upon our previous work (Horsewood & Voicu, 2006 and Horsewood & Voicu 2007) and investigates the trade relationships of the new entrants using aggregate trade data. The analysis will use quarterly data and aims to examine if common features can be identified across the transition countries, in particular structural shifts on accession to the EU. Given the time series properties of the data, the technique of cointegration is employed to see if long-run import and export relationships exist. Various procedures will be used to examine the nature of the dynamic relationships during the 2000s, especially the Phillips-Peron test and SURE estimation. Emphasis will be placed on the idea of a examining the similarities of effects across the new EU members.