The Role of Trade Openness and Institutional Quality in the Productivity Performance of Central and Eastern European Accession Countries

We estimate the effect of trade openness and institutional quality on productivity of Central and Eastern European accession countries. Our approach builds on recent economic literature dealing with the so-called "deep" determinants of economic growth (Frankel and Romer, 1999, Hall and Jones, 1999, Alcalà and Ciccone, 2001). This work focuses on a specific time dimension as we employ a panel data set which covers the period from the break down of Soviet Union to today. The empirical results seem to confirm the relevance of both the degree of trade openness and the progress in the institutional reforms in explaining productivity performance in transition economies.