Abstract:

Over  the  last  twenty  years,  Central  and  Eastern  European  countries  (CEE)  experienced  a specific pattern of growth  and catching-up through integration into the EU. This pattern of  growth combines institutional anchoring to the EU, integration of product markets through trade in goods and services, unfettered capital mobility including foreign direct investment flows and labour mobility. In these circumstances the actual economic crisis represented a major challenge for these economies, which moreover were quite affected and the recovery is slow. 

For the purpose of the statistic data analysis, we decided to form two groups of countries, based on their history, background  and  recent  development.  We  first  made  an  analysis  of  the  evolution  of  macroeconomic indicators  to see  how  economic  policy  measures  were  favourable  overcoming  the  crisis  for  each  country. Through  a  panel data  model  we  tried  to  illustrate  the  impact  of  certain  macroeconomics  variables (unemployment rate, GDP, FDI, trade) on standard of living (real average net earnings).