Real convergence of the Czech Republic to the European union in comparison with the other new member countries

Abstract

The paper analyzes the process of real convergence of the Czech Republic and the other new EU member countries towards the old EU. The new member countries were β- converging towards the EU in the period 1992-2004. The speed of convergence was 1.77% which is a number comparable to the speed of convergence among the states of the USA. The Czech Republic has been growing more slowly than what would correspond to its level of real GDP per capita. This trend seems to have been overcome by faster growth in the last two years. Still, even in the optimistic scenario, it will take more than 30 years for the Czech Republic to reach the EU-15 average, which is more than for most of the other new member countries, in particular the dynamically growing Baltic countries.