Competitiveness of the New European Union Member States in International Trade in Knowledge-intensive Business Services

The aim of this paper is to study and compare the competitiveness of the new EU member states in international trade in knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). The first part of the paper presents a definition of KIBS trade, indicators to measure competitiveness in international service trade, and a short review of research in this field. The second part of the study is empirical. First the author carries out an overall analysis of transactions on KIBS trade in the countries involved. Then the competitiveness of the new EU member states in KIBS export is studied (in total KIBS and in each category of KIBS). International competitiveness is measured by export performance, trade balance and the RCA index. The author compares the competitiveness in KIBS exports between the analyzed countries, and tries to answer the question whether it could have been positively affected by their accession to the EU. The paper uses the WTO database. The analyzed period covers the years 2000–2013, because data on particular categories of ‘Other business services’ have been available only since 2000. The analysis refers to the 12 countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007.