Economic transformation, take-off and stagnation. Hungary's macroeconomic convergence with the developed regions of the European Union from the early 1990s to 2013

My paper examines certain macroeconomic aspects of the European convergence (in other words, catching up) of the Hungarian economy in an international comparison from the early years of the political and economic transition to 2013. My work is related in some respects to a similar study on the same topic published in the 2008 Social Report, which I co-authored with Béla Szörfi (Oblath– Szörfi 2008), but its questions and approach differ significantly from that study. The aim of the study, which was written five years ago, was to explore the common features of the convergence of the countries that joined the European Union in 2004 and the relationships between certain characteristics of convergence. Although there were signs at the time of writing that Hungary's economic development might take a different direction from that of the countries that joined the EU with us, based on an analysis of the entire period between 1995 and 2007, our country did not stand out from the crowd: its convergence with the more developed EU member states was roughly in line with what was to be expected given its initial lag. For this reason, the approach taken in the earlier study seemed logical: if we can gain an understanding of the general trends and correlations characterizing convergence within the EU as a whole trends and correlations within the EU as a whole, as well as the specific characteristics of the new member states, we can draw valid conclusions about the conditions and prospects for domestic convergence. By 2014, this approach had clearly become unsuitable.