A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF GDP GROWTH, CATCH-UP AND CONVERGENCE IN TRANSITION ECONOMIES

Ertuğrul DELIKTAŞ (Ege University)
Mehmet BALCILAR (Çukurova University)

The paper examines the macroeconomic performance of transition economies using a comparable data set on sub-periods 1960-1990 and 1991-2001. Centrally planned economies were criticized for wide-spread economic inefficiency and low total factor productivity growth. In order to see whether transition to market based economy increased economic efficiency, we estimate pre-transition and post-transition efficiency measures for East European and Former Soviet Union Countries.

Real per capita product and its growth rate are the most widely used criteria for economic performance measures. For this reason, the paper examines the real per capita gross domestic product and its growth rate over the study period. The paper also examines the changes in total factor productivity and its decomposition into technical change and technical efficiency changes.

The analysis is undertaken using the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Technical inefficiency effects are modeled as a function of country-specific socioeconomic factors, liberalization and democratization indices, and time period under Soviet Union.