This paper examines the relationship between financial development and international trade in Croatia over the period from the first quarter of 1997 and the last quarter of 2015. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration is applied to examine the long-run and short-run relationships among the series. The research hypothesis is accepted and the relationship between financial development and international trade in Croatia is established and confirmed. The research results reveal unidirectional Granger causality from financial development to international trade at the 10% significance level, and negative long-run and the positive short-run relationships between financial developments and international trade in Croatia.

Foreign direct investments are seen as a prerequisite for gaining and maintaining competitiveness. The research objective of this study is to examine the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic growth in “new” European Union member countries using various unit root, cointegration, as well as causality tests. The paper employs annual data for FDI and gross domestic product (GDP) from 2002 to 2018 for the 13 most recent members of European Union (EU13): Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. An estimated panel ARDL (PMG) model found evidence that there is a long-run equilibrium between the LogGDP, LogFDI and LogFDIP series, with the rate of adjustment back to equilibrium between 3.27% and 20.67%. In the case of the LogFDI series, long-run coefficients are highly statistically significant in all four models, varying between 0.0828 and 0.3019. These coefficients indicate that a 1% increase in LogFDI increases LogGDP between 0.0828% and 0.3019%. Results of a Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality test indicated that a relationship between the GDP growth rate and FDI growth rate is only indirect. Finally, only weak evidence was shown that FDI had a statistically significant impact on GDP in the EU13 countries over the period 2002-2018. This report of findings contributes to the literature concerning FDI and economic growth, namely regarding the current understanding of the relationship between these two factors.

The aim of this study is to investigate the motives and effects of mega-regional trade agreements on the multilateral trading system using the example of Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Multilateralism and regionalism, although opposite trends, coexist simultaneously. While many arguments can be given for both approaches one has to recognize that the number of regional trade agreements is increasing and that regionalism is becoming a prevailing trend. The response to the regional trade agreements, especially mega-regionals, will mostly depend upon the effect on the third countries’ trade interests. Since it is expected that, over time, many of the currently excluded emerging economies will become a part of some mega-regional agreement, it is not likely that new global standards and rules will be created on a strictly regional but rather on multilateral level.

This paper examines the relationship between gross domestic product and exports of goods and services in Croatia between 1996 and 2012. The research results confirmed unidirectional Granger causality from the exports of goods and services to gross domestic product. Following the Engle-Granger approach to cointegration, long-term equilibrium as well as short-term correlation between the observed variables was identified. Exports of goods and services and gross domestic product (GDP) in Croatia move together. If the two observed variables move away from equilibrium, they will return to their long-term equilibrium state at a velocity of 24.46% in the subsequent period. In accordance with the results, we found evidence supporting the export-led growth hypothesis in Croatia. As the outcomes indicated, to recover the economy, Croatia should put more emphasis on the development of exporting sectors.