Comparison of Competitiveness and Business Performance in the Visegrád Group since the EU Accession: A Quantitative Analysis

The goal of this paper is to analyze main changes in the business performance - as in part of the overall competitiveness - of the Visegrád Group, i.e. Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Poland and Hungary, in the last ten years, 2004–2014, based on Pearson correlation, Chow and Granger Causality tests. The business performance in the Visegrád Group is defined with the help of five indicators: business density, value added per business entity, investment in fixed capital per business density, inward foreign direct investment stock per business entity and ex-ports of goods and services per business entity. The author finds that the business performance, and hence the business environment, in the Visegrád Group has diverged since EU accession with the exception of internationalization indicators, which indicates the necessity for managers to adjust to the specifics in each particular country