Abstract
There is no definitive measure of size of a country in the economic literature apart from the general view that a country is small if it cannot affect world prices for its imports and/or exports, and large if it can.
This measure of size is elusive and difficult for any classification of size.
The focus of this chapter is establishing a measurement of size and constructing a size classification.
The literature on the implications of the size of economies identifies a number of specific characteristics that are inversely associated with size, notably openness to trade, output and export concentration, geographic export market concentration and a dependence on larger neighbouring countries for their trade and economic growth.
This chapter also focuses on the empirical analysis of how several critical characteristics of economies vary according to their size. The intention is to provide a size classification that will be used in the investigation of the extent that the impact of economic integration is asymmetric according to the size of acceding economies.
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Snorrason, S.T. (2012). An Empirical Analysis of the Size Characteristics of Economies. In: Asymmetric Economic Integration. Contributions to Economics. Physica, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2861-0_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2861-0_3
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