Asymmetries Of The EU Single Market Effects In The Polish Economy

Abstract

The European Union Single Market represents one of the most advanced examples of economic integration in the contemporary global economy. The main thing about it is that it functions as a mechanism that systematically reduces transaction costs and increases the accessibility of national markets to economic actors from other Member States. The aim of this study is to present the effects of the asymmetries of the EU single market on the Polish economy through a combination of data and methods. To pursue this objective, we use the industry-level International Trade and Production Database for Estimation (ITPD-E) of the U.S. International Trade Commission, and we rely on the workhorse empirical model of trade – the gravity equation, which we estimate for each of the 170 ITPD-E industries following the recommendations for gravity estimations. Against this backdrop, the contribution of our paper is to obtain estimates of the asymmetric effects of the Single Market on the exports vs. imports for Poland, looking at important sectors of the Polish economy such as Agriculture and Agricultural Products, Mining and Energy, Manufacturing, Services. As a final result, it can be stated that integration with the EU Single Market revealed and reinforced Poland’s existing comparative advantages in primary production, making the agricultural raw materials sector one of the earliest beneficiaries of trade liberalisation. At the same time, it entrenched an asymmetric pattern of specialisation, in which the growth of exports of raw products coexisted with a relatively greater dependence on imports of goods with a higher degree of processing