Factors of Economic Growth in Latvia

Uneven economic growth during the recent years raise the question whether any factor of economic growth aside economic cycle fluctuations exists in Latvia. The objective of the Doctoral Thesis is, to assess the factors of economic growth in Latvia using econometric modelling techniques, and to solve various problems that arise when such techniques are used in Latvia's case. The Doctoral Thesis has identified the main factor of economic growth in Latvia – fixed capital accumulation. Although every euro of public investments on average contributes to the GDP growth at least as much as the euro of private investments, fixed capital accumulation in the private sector is the primary source of economic growth owing to its larger amount and faster growth. The positive impact of fixed capital accumulation on the average labour productivity level in the country is both direct (increasing capital to labour ratio) and indirect (allowing to use more productive technologies). It is fixed capital accumulation that was the main factor that determined the convergences process of Latvia's average income and labour productivity level to the respective indicator in the EU-15 (countries that entered EU before 2004). The Doctoral Thesis has identified the role of other factors of economic growth in Latvia as well as in other EU countries: labour, human capital and natural resource capacity in a country; changes of economic structure; world technical progress and country backwardness in respect to the world production frontier; regional aspects. The Doctoral Thesis showed that results of the research depend crucially on selection of a particular method, statistical data source and assumptions. Therefore, a considerable part of the research is devoted to the methodological features of statistical data as well as to the check of result stability in respect to alternative methods and assumptions.