Trade Resilience of Central and Eastern European Countries to the Shock Caused by the Russia–Ukraine War
Trade Resilience of Central and Eastern European Countries to the Shock Caused by the Russia–Ukraine War

Summary/Abstract: The instability of the world economy in the 21st century demands that more interest bepaid to the nature of emerging disruptions, their effects, and the ways to ensure theappropriate reactions of affected parties. Research on the economic resilience of variouskinds is more prominent as a result, with certain exceptions—trade resilience studies areamong those that require more attention, both theoretically, methodically, andempirically. Recent trade resilience studies have focused mostly on the effects of theshock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, either on a global scale or a particular countryscale. The goal of our study is to examine how the external shock caused by the Russia–Ukraine war influenced the trade resilience of Central and Eastern European (CEE)countries. The methodology used in our research is an elaboration on and modificationof approaches used by previous studies on both economic and trade resilience. On thebasis of statistical data from the period 2016–2023, we propose the original TradeVulnerability Index (TVI), adapted for the shock originating from the Russia–Ukrainewar. For the resistance index used for measuring CEE countries’ trade resilience, weapplied a known but not previously implemented approach. The obtained results showedthat all CEE countries’ trade was resistant to the disruption caused by the armed conflictin the initial year, with few exceptions (Baltic States and Poland) in the following (2023)period. Even the trade of countries with high TVI scores (Slovakia and Czechia) hasproven to be resilient. The main theoretical contribution of this study is the confirmationof the lack of dependence between the vulnerability of trades to disruptions and theirresistance to war in the example of war shock and CEE countries. The implications ofthe obtained results can be helpful in developing nation-specific policies to increase traderesilience and the effectiveness of structural changes.

• Details
• Contents