Abstract

In this paper, an effort was made in order to classify the European Union (EU) countries according to the quantity of the sheep meat production. In particular, the implementation of Fuzzy classification, indicated three sheep meat productionclasses in EU, according to their percentage of accession. Furthermore, the convergence in the sheep meat production for the same group with the application of a panel unit root test was studied. The next step involved the application of a unit root test to each time series studied. For all the I(1) time series we then proceeded the application of the Johansen cointegration technique within each group. According to the results of the aforementioned technique we confirmed one cointegrating vector in every group, indicating a relation in the long run between the domestic production of each country within each group. Finally, the application of Granger causality test confirmed in some cases that the domestic sheep meat production of a country affects and is affected by other countries within the same group.

Key words: European union, Granger causality, fuzzy classification, sheep meat production.