Modele kapitalizmu w krajach Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej w porównaniu z Europą Zachodnią w obszarze konkurencji na rynku produktów

The article compares 11 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, which are new EU members, with 7 countries of Western Europe representing 4 Western European models of capitalism (continental, Mediterranean, Nordic, and Anglo-Saxon) in the area of product market competition. The analysis covers the 2010-2020 period. One of the goals of the study is to determine the degree of similarity of the institutional architecture of the CEE countries in relation to the reference models in the last year before the coronavirus pandemic outbreak and to analyze the changes in these results over the last decade. Particular emphasis was placed on changes in the degree of similarity between two snapshots: 2010 and 2019. The study includes 26 variables characterizing the product market competition. These variables describe both the institutional architecture of the product market competition (the so-called input variables) and the effects of a given institutional order (output variables). The comparison of countries is based on our own concept of the similarity coefficient. One of the elements of novelty and originality is the analysis of robustness in terms of various Western European countries, which are a reference point, as well as alternative methods of calculating the similarity coefficient. The study shows that the results are robust to the assumptions made. The CEE countries are closest to the Mediterranean model of capitalism (both Spain and Italy). The Nordic model ranks last. The classification of Western European models of capitalism in terms of institutional proximity to the CEE countries is also robust to the exact method of calculating the similarity coefficient.