Dimensions of quality upgrading: Evidence from CEECs

Uwe Dulleck, Neil Foster, Robert Stehrer, Julia Woerz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The impact of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies' trade integration with European markets on CEE trade structures has been studied extensively. These studies frequently observe a quality upgrading of CEE exports. In this paper we consider three dimensions of quality upgrading: Upgrading across industries, upgrading across different quality segments within industries and, finally, product upgrading within quality segments inside industries. For the analysis we partition industries into quality segments based on EU-15 import unit values. The results for ten CEE countries (comprising the CEE-5, the Baltics and South East Europe) and thirteen industries suggest fundamental differences, both across country groups and across the three different notions of quality upgrading. The CEE-5 show no evidence of entering a 'low-quality trap' in all three dimensions. By contrast, while there is a general catching-up process across industries and inside quality segments, the second notion of low-quality specialization may be applicable within the high-tech industries to the performance for the Baltics and South East Europe as a group.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)51-76
Number of pages26
JournalEconomics of Transition
Volume13
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2005
Externally publishedYes

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