Abstract :
The competitiveness of the Western Balkans’ economies has gained in significance, becoming
even European strategic interest, due to the acceleration of their EU accession process in recent period.
Despite of the global financial and economic crisis in the last decade, the Western Balkans is
continuously improving its competitiveness as a region, but the progress is uneven and much slower
than in other EU countries. Even more, increased competitiveness in each of these countries, made
different impact on their export, economic growth, and employment which requires more focused
analysis.
The paper aims to present the comparative analysis of the increased competitiveness in the
Western Balkan countries in the period 2005-2015, as well as to analyze if the competitiveness made
an impact on different aspect of the economic development of analyzed countries.
Using the trend and regression analysis, this paper presents that at regional level there is positive
correlation and impact of competitiveness on economic development and export of goods and services,
but, no significant impact on employment rate.
However, separate country analysis shows some discrepancies from the general findings which
are presented in the paper.
Keyword :
competitiveness, productivity, economic development, export, employment rate