The Impact Of Absorbed European Funds On The Economic Growth Of Bulgaria And New Member States

Abstract

The aim of this research is to analyze the short- and long-term relationship between the absorbed European funds and the economic growth in the 11 new member states as a group, and in Bulgaria in particular, during the period 2014-2020. To achieve the aim of the research, we have adopted the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model. The results show that, as public investments, the absorbed European funds have an impact on the economic growth of the 11 new member states in the short, but not in the long term. The relationship between the economic growth and the rate of absorption of European funds in Bulgaria indicates a short-term positive, but not long-term impact of the absorbed European funds on the rate of growth of the real GDP of our country.