Piotr Gabrielczak

Department of Macroeconomics, The University of Lodz,

Poland

piotr.gabrielczak@uni.lodz.pl 

ORCID0000-0002-9032-7204

The specialisation and sophistication of services exports: The case of the Visegrad countries

Kamila Kuziemska-Pawlak

Department of Macroeconomics, The University of Lodz,

Poland

kamila.kuziemska@uni.lodz.pl 

ORCID 0000-0002-7409-8317

Abstract. This article analyses exports of services from Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia between 2010 and 2018, focusing on specialisation and sophistication, also known as complexity. The symmetric revealed comparative advantage index was used to determine fields of specialisation, and PRODY and EXPY indices were used to measure complexity. The results suggest that the Visegrad countries predominantly specialised in the export of relatively unsophisticated services compared to other European Union countries. Still, exports of services from the Visegrad countries were more complex than their real GDP per capita would suggest, and this sophistication is growing. This is due to the convergence of sophistication levels between service categories rather than advances in the structure of services exported by the Visegrad countries. Hence, integration with more developed European Union countries sustained existing fields of specialisation.

Received: November, 2020

1st Revision: August, 2021

Accepted: September, 2021

DOI: 10.14254/2071-8330.2021/14-3/6

JEL Classification: F14, F15

Keywords: exports of services, revealed comparative advantage, export complexity, economic integration, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia