Studies of efficiency and competitiveness of foreign trade in the Central and Eastern European countries: a literature review

Fertő, Imre – Baráth, Lajos

Keywords: technical efficiency, total factor productivity, TFP, foreign trade, competitiveness

The aim of this study was to review studies analysing the technical efficiency and foreign trade competitiveness in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) Region in order to help young researchers to get familiarised with these questions. Our brief lit-erature review revealed that there are many methodological issues concerning the es-timation of technical efficiency, irrespective of using micro or macro level data. There were some popular questions that researchers intended to answer using these meth-ods. Two of the most important issues were the examination of the relationship be-tween size and technical efficiency (TE) and the investigation of the effect of subsidies on TE. The results were ambiguous concerning both questions: some studies showed a negative correlation whilst others demonstrated a positive relationship. Additionally, the review of foreign trade competitiveness literature showed that the CEE countries did not become as significant exporters as was expected. Our review also suggests that the new theoretical and methodological results may help to understand better the for-eign trade integration of these countries. In short, there are numerous open questions; therefore there are many directions within these topics which can be chosen by young researchers in order to contribute to the better understanding of the development of agriculture in the CEE region.

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