Factors of predictability of Lithuania’s economy

Europos Sąjungos plėtra nulėmė ir toliau lems daug pasikeitimų tiek senosiose jos narėse, tiek ir naujosiose narėse. Baltijos šalys - Lietuva, Latvija, Estija - pavyzdys ne tik ypač sparčių ekonomikos augimo tempų, bet ir vis sunkiau prognozuojamos ateities. Baltijos šalys trokšta tapti ir Euro šalimis, tačiau vienas pagrindinių kriterijų, pagal kurį sprendžiama apie šalių tinkamumą formuojant pinigų sąjungą, yra jų verslo ciklų simetriškumas, infliacijos didumas ir jos tempų kontroliuojamumas, bei kai kurie kiti rodikliai. Drįstame teigti, kad Lietuvos ūkio prognozuojamumas, lyginant su senesnėmis ir didesnėmis rinkos ekonomikos šalimis, nėra pakankamas. Aplinkybės, kurios tai lemia, yra: vis dar vykstanti ūkio restruktūrizacija, baigiant pilnai pereiti į rinkos ekonomiką visose ūkio ir kultūros srityse; vis dar gerėjantis žmoniškųjų išteklių prisitaikymas naujiesiems reikalavimams, lydimas augančių migracijos tempų; vis dar didelė ekonomikos augimo tempų priklausomybė nuo atskirų didelių įmonių, tokių, kaip Ignalinos atominė elektrinė, "Mažeikių nafta", ir kitų, sėkmės eksporto rinkose. Neprognozuojamumą lemia ir "burbuliuojanti" nekilnojamojo turto rinka. Visa tai sąlygoja tyrimų, kurie galėtų padidinti Lietuvos ekonomikos augimo tempų prognozuojamumą, atskleistų ribas, kuriose augimą galėtų įtakoti atskiri rizikos veiksniai svarbą.The expansion of European Union have determined and will determine in the future many changes in older and in newer member countries. Baltic countries - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - example not only extremely high rates of growth, but also as example of countries with less and less predictable future. The Baltic countries desire to become Euro currency countries. This is aim easier to achieve if business cycles in the Baltic countries and in other EU countries are symmetric, with low inflation and predictability of growth rates. We do affirm that the predictability of Lithuania's economy, comparing with older and bigger countries of market economy is not satisfactory. The circumstances, which determine such situation, are: still going on restructuring of the economy, in this final stage of transition to market economy background in all fields of economy and culture; still going on adaptation of human resources to new requirements, accompanied with the growing rate of migration; still to big dependence of the growth rates of economy on the successes of such big companies as Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant and "Mažeikių Nafta" oil refinery in export markets. The unpredictability also aggravates the bubbling real estate market. Paper intends to shed the light on the Lithuania's business cycle symmetry as compared to selected countries. Structural vector autoregressive model is employed in order to recover the underlying demand and supply shocks and further calculate correlation coefficients. Data for estimation covers ten years period starting with the end of 1993. If countries will experience asymmetric shocks and subsequently diverging business cycles, grave consequences like output loss and rise in unemployment may arise. Since the Baltic countries are geographically and economically perceived as EU "periphery" we check the hypothesis that their shocks might be uncorrelated with "core" EMU member shocks. Low correlation would suggest that at least currently these countries are not suitable good enough candidates for Euro zone at the moment. Our estimation indeed discloses troubling signs in this aspect. Symmetry among Baltic States and other EU countries business cycles is low. This finding clearly signals about potential welfare losses arising from asymmetric shocks after Euro accession. This suggests that some shocks might have been specific to economic reforms undertaken during transition and further development in the region. Demand shock correlation on average is lower than supply shock correlation. We think that increasing trade volumes with EU members and common EMU policies may alleviate the particular problem and force more converging business cycle fluctuations. The influence of the closure of Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant to the growth rate may be estimated as potential loss of as many as 2,8 percent points of growth rate, not taking into account potential loss yearly 4 - 5 billion Lt for acquiring Tradable CO2 Emission Permissions