Profit Generating Influence of Export on the GDP of Poland in Comparison with the EU–15 and Germany in 1991–2007

Abstract

The article has been based on empiric examinations aimed at defining
the influence of export on the GDP in Poland and Germany against a background
of the European Union between 1991 and 2007. The phenomenon
has been examined with the use of a ratio of the GDP to export (all data in
current prices in euro) in subsequent years – the rate being treated as a kind
of effect multiplier. It has been established that the incomecreating influence
of export in all examined countries throughout the whole period is showing
a decrease. It is assumed to be a result of the existence of grey market in the
field of the GDP increases, which are unrecorded in the official statistics. It
has been noticed, however, that a stronger decline of the rate occurred in
the whole European Union in the years 2003–2007. In Poland and Germany
it has a form of a trend line offset that indicates the overlapping of a new
factor decreasing the income generating influence of export. The author
proposes a hypothesis that in that period there was a stronger occurrence of
a phenomenon of internalization, i.e. a multinational companies’ practice to
unofficially transfer their profits abroad, mainly in the form of transfer prices
that change some profits into costs and result in the GDP decrease.