Working papers published by IMAD ISSN: 1318-1920 ... - UMAR

An analysis of past and future GDP growth in Slovenia
Concluding remarks
Working paper 3/2004
IMAD
51
7. Concluding remarks
The future for growth in real GDP per capita in Slovenia still looks bright. Over
the period 1993-2002 Slovenian GDP per capita grew at the brisk pace of 4.1%
per year. The main driving forces appear to have been physical and human capital
accumulation. For the future, we project somewhat slower growth, around 3.6%
when using our preferred series. Human capital accumulation is projected to pick
up but this is dominated by lower projected physical capital deepening.
3.6% growth in real GDP per capita in Slovenia will not be enough to catch up
with average real GDP per capita in the EU by 2013. To catch up with the EU
average by 2013, growth in GDP per capita in Slovenia would have to be about
4.9% per year. Given the base projection of 3.6%, this seems a rather big leap.
However, in Jongen (2004a) we indicate that there is still a lot of room for
improvement relative to the EU, in particular in TFP, which leaves much room for
still higher growth rates.
We conclude with a cautionary note. The preceding analysis builds on short data
series of an economy that has witnessed substantial structural changes over the
past decade, and which can be expected to witness more of them in the future.
Hence, our findings from the past and projections for the future should be interpreted
with perhaps more than the usual levels of care.