| Abstrakt: |
The main objective of this paper is to examine the real convergence in Croatia towards the European Union (EU27, EU14, and EU10) in the 1995-2022 period and in Croatia's first 9 years of membership, and second how the COVID-19 pandemic affected that process. Additionally, the aim is to test the efficiency of Croatia's achievements regarding the EU10 in their first 9 years of membership and in the 1995-2022 period. The main problem in the paper is the economic disparity in the standard of living and wealth between Croatia and EU member states, and the absence of a consensus among economists on convergence/divergence processes in the literature. An additional problem is that most papers study convergence based on PPP-based GDP per capita, and a more accurate measure of the material well-being of households is PPP-based actual individual consumption (AIC) per capita. The inclusion of AIC per capita in the analysis is the added value of this paper. For the analysis data from the World Bank database were used and converted into the per capita measure. The research results indicate that Croatia has narrowed the income gap regarding the EU27 and EU14, but not with EU10 in the 1995-2022 period and in its first 9 years of membership. The COVID-19 pandemic did not affect that process. The convergence process was less efficient in Croatia than in EU10 in the whole 1995-2022 period and in their first 9 years of membership. The main implication of the paper is the confirmation of the convergence regardless the macroeconomic indicator used and a confirmation of stronger convergence in EU10 than in Croatia. The results are important because they draw attention to the lacked growth-enhancing economic policies and structural reforms that improve competitiveness, productivity and accelerate the convergence in Croatia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
