The Determinants of Economic Growth in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic During the Years 1995-2010

The main goal of the research is to obtain a comprehensive examination of the economic growth determinants in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic (CEEC-4) since 1995. For this purpose, two methodological approaches have been applied: the Solow growth accounting and the non-parametric approach. At the beginning of the analysis, in order to obtain a general overview of the sources of economic growth in the former transition countries of Central Eastern Europe, the Solow growth accounting has been conducted. It decomposes the growth rate of output into contributions from changes in the quantity of the physical capital stock, the amount of labour input and some other unexplained factor commonly interpreted as reflecting technological progress and called the "Solow residual" or "Total Factor Productivity (TFP)". The hypothesis that technological progress together with strong capital accumulation were the dominant factors behind the economic growth and convergence process in the Central Eastern European countries before the crisis is tested. As the Solow growth accounting does not reveal the driving forces behind the technological progress and, thus, a large part of the growth decomposition remains unexplained in the transition economies, the non-parametric approach has been employed to shed more light on the ultimate sources of economic growth in the CEEC-4. The non-parametric (production-frontier) method enables the further decomposition of changes in total factor productivity into changes in the efficiency of production and technological changes. Furthermore, it allows accounting for human capital accumulation, since improvements in quality of labour are also reflected in TFP growth.