How CEFTA influenced the competitiveness of agri-food trade in the Western Balkans

Matkovski, Bojan; Đokić, Danilo; Jovic, Luna

doi:10.2298/eka2235037m

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 46 publications

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“…Therefore, discussions on spatial inequalities continue to dominate political agendas across the region to this day. Studies on the effect of the CEFTA agreement on the region also show cross-country variations in trade-creating effects, despite these countries being at similar levels of economic development (Uberti & Demukaj, 2019;Matkovski et al, 2022). These insights highlight the importance of asking whether the CRM might benefit some economic actors and regions more than others.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How regional integration agreements can foster inclusive growth: lessons from exporting SMEs in the Western Balkans

Avlijaš

2022

EKON ANAL

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Empirical evidence on regional integration indicates that CEFTA?s Common Regional Market (CRM) could have spatially unequalising effects across the Western Balkans. Such an outcome would be in conflict with CEFTA?s goal of inclusive regional economic integration. This article offers a roadmap to avoid that pitfall. Literature on the changing global economy in the digital era and ICT-led growth and literature on the political economy of trust and cooperation between smaller economic agents are brought into a conversation with bottom-up empirical insights from small and medium enterprises (SME) from the region. Empirical data are collected from in-depth interviews with 58 export-oriented SMEs in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia. I find that smaller firms are immensely interdependent with the environments within which they operate and that their competitiveness also stems from their ability to successfully leverage on these communal resources and local public goods. Finding ways to preserve and enhance this collective infrastructure is often more of a priority for them than market expansion and technological progress. The paper concludes by arguing that designing (supranational) institutions which can facilitate local and translocal cooperation among competitive exporting SMEs would mobilise greater democratic support for the CRM project.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How regional integration agreements can foster inclusive growth: lessons from exporting SMEs in the Western Balkans

Avlijaš

2022

EKON ANAL

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Analysis of Albania’s Trade Direction: Is the Open Balkan a New Center of Gravity?

Zeneli (Foto),

Benga,

Hoti

2024

Economies

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Trade is considered one of the main drivers of a country’s economic growth and development. Therefore, a successful analysis that identifies the bilateral trade flows, their determinants, and the regional integration costs and benefits opens new horizons for international trade perspectives. This study examines the effects of new and existing regional agreements on the international trade patterns of Western Balkan countries based on the Albanian case. In this regard, an extended trade gravity model is applied with a panel data set of trade flows between Albania and 43 of its regional strategic partners during the period of 2008 to 2022. This work considers two different similarity indexes to explain the effect of the economic structures of partner countries on their trade volumes: the relative factor endowment and the absolute factor endowment. The first is used to test the Linder Hypothesis, and the latter is used to test the effect of similarity in economic size between trading partners. Empirical results indicate that the effect of the selected explanatory variables, such as transportation costs, economic size, economic strength, exchange rate, and their relative as well as absolute endowment, is within expectations. Unexpectedly, the domestic economic size and strength are found to be insignificant in explaining the import flows and inversely proportional to the exports of Albania. Finally, it is indicated that trade flows are clearly dependent on traditional ties rather than on new incentives like the Open Balkan, which cannot offer a new regional center of gravity. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the gravity of the Open Balkan initiative has been tested for one of the participating countries. The study concludes that while the Open Balkan initiative shows potential, the Berlin Process remains a more reliable path toward EU integration for Albania.

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How CEFTA influenced the competitiveness of agri-food trade in the Western Balkans

Cited by 2 publications

References 46 publications

How regional integration agreements can foster inclusive growth: lessons from exporting SMEs in the Western Balkans

How regional integration agreements can foster inclusive growth: lessons from exporting SMEs in the Western Balkans

Analysis of Albania’s Trade Direction: Is the Open Balkan a New Center of Gravity?

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