Abstract
Spurred by the recent global economic crisis, there has been a resurgence of research on output gaps. As the crisis caused a decline in potential GDP due to a strong contraction in demand, it is expected that the recovery of potential output will be especially difficult in demand-driven small open economies, such as the Western Balkan countries, where recovery will strongly depend on global international trade recovery. The purpose of this research is to calculate and compare pre and post-crisis potential GDPs and GDP gaps for the Western Balkan countries. The symmetric filter method developed by Hodrick and Prescott is used to de-trend GDP time series data by decomposing it into growth and cyclical components. The results point to a strong decrease in potential output growth compared to the pre-crisis potential output growth of the Western Balkans.