This Country Focus studies the impact of changes in government expenditure in Hungary over the period 1997Q1 to 2005Q4 using a structural vector-autoregressive model. The results suggest that discretionary shifts in government expenditure have a mixed impact on the economy. In particular, while...

Unemployment has fallen considerably during the recent period of record growth in the Czech economy. This has ended a long period of relatively jobless growth during which GDP was driven by advances in productivity and capital deepening rather than rises in employment. This country focus...