A portfolio approach to a cross-sectoral and cross-national investment strategy in transition economies

This paper takes a systematic look at the portfolio choice problem faced by Investment Banks or Funds investing in transition economies. We relate the performance of projects in the transition economies to the broader macroeconomic and international environments, which affect the project through their input-output structures and financial balance sheets. Among the macroeconomic determinanst of enterprise behaviour are productivity growth, real wage growth, movements in the international terms of trade, shocks to the relative price of traded and non-traded goods, domestic and foreign interest rates, currency depreciation and the rate of inflaction. We evaluate the attractiveness of alternative investment strategies and provisioning rules from the perspective of portfoio theory. Copyright The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1997.