Jan Hagemejer presented the preliminary results of a paper "Up or down the value chain? The comparative analysis of the GVC position of the CEECs economies" prepared together with Mahdi Ghodsi (now at WIIW, Vienna). The paper uses World Input Output Database to analyse the measures of sectoral and country upstreamness - showing the position in the global value chains. The results show that while there has been a great deal of changes in the position of the Central European economies in the World and European supply chains, the structure of exports of the manufacturing sectors have converged over time in the New EU Member states (NMS) and the EU-15 over the analyzed period of 1995 to 2011. While the NMS economies have been producers and exporters of mostly intermediate goods throughout the analysed period , the globalization processes have contributed to a significant increase of intermediate good imports, giving rise to the so-called vertical specialization.

The aim of the Macromodels conferences, organised every year since 1974, is to bring together scientists who work in the field of econometric modelling in order to facilitate the exchange of views and experience. Within the scope of interest are issues such as the problems of estimation, simulation, developing econometric models and their use for policy analyses. Recently, a special attention has been given to modelling economies that undergo transition from centrally planned towards market systems, and new EU member countries. The 2014 edition of the conference included talks by Ali Kutan and Manfred Gili