Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Comparative Analysis of Structures of the Polish and the Euro Area Economies
Elzbieta Adamowicz, Konrad Walczyk

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this paper is to compare structures of the Polish and the euro area economies in order to test the surmise that similarity of production structures is positively correlated with business cycles synchronicity. We applied some measures of structural convergence and business cycles synchronicity to verify this hypothesis based on Eurostat data of 1995-2008 and we found that the structure of the Polish economy in comparison to the structures of the economies of the euro-zone exhibits substantial differences. The differences pertain to both the structure of production and the structure of the demand and can be a source of asymmetry of macroeconomic shocks. This conjecture is not undermined by the lack of a conclusive empirical verification of the hypothesis on the existence of a positive relation between the strength of synchronisation of business cycles and the degree of similarity of the structures of the economies. The impact of the variation of the structures of economies on business cycle will be a subject of a different research project.

KEYWORDS: monetary union, business cycles synchronicity, structural convergence, Poland.

JEL classification: E32, F15, P2.