EN
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 profit-generating influence of export in all the 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 profit-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.