Abstract:

With the disintegration of the USSR, one of the most striking economic and political events of the last century, the Eastern European countries, which left the union and had a central planning economy, switched to a free market economy that they had not experienced before. Along with this political and economic change, Eastern European countries, under the influence of globalization trends in the same period, encountered trade liberalization processes and had a commercially open structure. The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between trade openness and economic growth in 10 selected Eastern European countries over the period 1995-2020. According to the results of the time series analysis, a long-term relationship was determined between trade openness and economic growth in 3 countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia). According to the results of the panel data analysis, no relationship was found between trade openness and economic growth.

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