Main Economic Characteristics of Small Countries: Some Empirical Evidence

In the past four decades there have only been a few studies on the economic consequences of the size of countries (Robinson (1960), Khalaf (1971), Jalan (1982)) and only a few more on some of their special economic characteristics (Kuznets (1960), Michealy (1962), Lloyd (1968), Deans and Bernstein (1978), Senjur (1992a and 1992b), Damijan (1993, 1996), etc.). The main economic characteristics of small countries identified in those studies can be classified as a tendency towards: greater foreign trade opennessgreater concentration of production structurelimited ability to achieve economies of scalegreater commodity and geographic concentration of foreign tradelarger public sectorgreater balance of payments difficultiessmaller value of export multiplier.