Assessment of CIS Countries Readiness for Creation of Currency Union

The authors analyze the CIS countries' potential readiness to establish a currency union. Based on Optimum Currency Area (OCA) criteria that determine the countries' readiness to form a currency union and some particular benefits and costs of a currency union several macroeconomic indicators are determined area. The authors analyze the period following the final transformation of CIS countries' economies from centrally planned to the market ones - from 1999 to 2011. The paper also tests the stability of the results obtained to check the adequacy of obtained estimates and for ranging countries by their matching OCA criteria.