MACROECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF WINE PRODUCTION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

This paper focuses on the determinants of wine production in the European wine industry. In the last two decades, the European wine industry has undergone many changes due to the entry of new countries into the world wine market. Although increasing competitiveness became the priority of the European Common Agricultural Policy, wine production and consumption in the EU have decreased in the last two decades, and therefore the aim of this research is to analyse and identify the macroeconomic determinants of wine production, i.e. what factors besides the price influence wine production in selected EU countries and in how they can be controlled. Empirical research was conducted using data for EU member states traditionally engaged in wine production. Panel data on wine production, wine consumption, average wine price, wine imports, wine exports and EU support to the wine sector were collected from secondary sources for 15 wine-producing EU countries and for the period 2009-2018. We estimated the econometric model using pooled OLS, as diagnostic tests indicated that this estimator was the best fit for our data. Our results suggest that domestic demand and domestic (EU) subsidies are the main drivers of wine production. To keep up with New World wine producers, even more emphasis should be placed on promoting the wine drinking culture.