Abstract
The article has been based on empiric examinations aimed at defining
the influence of export on the GDP in Poland and Germany against a background
of the European Union between 1991 and 2007. The phenomenon
has been examined with the use of a ratio of the GDP to export (all data in
current prices in euro) in subsequent years – the rate being treated as a kind
of effect multiplier. It has been established that the incomecreating influence
of export in all examined countries throughout the whole period is showing
a decrease. It is assumed to be a result of the existence of grey market in the
field of the GDP increases, which are unrecorded in the official statistics. It
has been noticed, however, that a stronger decline of the rate occurred in
the whole European Union in the years 2003–2007. In Poland and Germany
it has a form of a trend line offset that indicates the overlapping of a new
factor decreasing the income generating influence of export. The author
proposes a hypothesis that in that period there was a stronger occurrence of
a phenomenon of internalization, i.e. a multinational companies’ practice to
unofficially transfer their profits abroad, mainly in the form of transfer prices
that change some profits into costs and result in the GDP decrease.