THE ECONOMIC GROWTH AND OPENNESS OF ECONOMY

International trade significantly determines the level of economy output. The volume of international trade, in comparison to produced output, might be expressed as the openness of economy. Openness is the most obvious aspect of globalization. This gives the researchers a wide range of research questions. Theoretical and empirical papers usually deal with the impact of openness on macroeconomic development of countries, regions or economic areas. Openness of economy is reduced by three main barriers imperfection in flows of goods, factors of productions and ideas. However, it is very difficult to measure and quantify these imperfections. Even those, that are available, e.g. tariff and non-tariff barriers are of poor quality and limited by time period. Since the Slovak Republic ranks among the most open economies, paper deals with the analysis of openness of Slovak economy and with relationship between openness and the growth in Slovakia. The paper also analyzes different options in openness measurement and analyzes the degree of openness of Slovakia, as well as European Union members.