European integration and firm's export performance in the new EU member countries

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to investigate whether the accession to the European Union and the common currency adoption increased the export activity of individual firms in the new EU member states. To evaluate these effects we use probit estimation, based on the Melitz [2003] model and firm-level BEEPS dataset. We demonstrate that both the accession of the CEECs to the EU and the common currency adoption increased the firms' propensity to export in those countries. Our results indicate also that the probability of exporting increases with the share of university graduates in employment, larger spending on R&D, the use of foreign technology licenses, foreign ownership, the productivity and the firm's size. (original abstract)