Country- and industry-specifi c determinants of intra-industry trade in agri-food products in the Visegrad countries

The article analyses country- and industry-specific determinants of horizontal and vertical intra-industry trade (IIT) in agri-food products between the Visegrad countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovak Republic) and the European Union in the period 1999-2013. The results show that IIT is mainly of a vertical nature in the Visegrad countries, though the majority of their exports consist of low quality/value-added agri-food products to European markets. The results obtained by generalised method of moments (GMM) panel model estimations suggest that factor endowments and distance are mainly negatively related to IIT, while product differentiation was found not to foster two-way trade of quality-differentiated goods. All model runs show a negative relationship between productivity as well as foreign direct investment and IIT.