The paper analyzes the forces driving inflation in the new EU10 member countries. A significant part of headline inflation in these countries is due to common factors, such as price level convergence and EU integration. However, idiosyncratic factors have also played a role in the inflation...

A fear about EMU was that in the absence of national currencies, country-specific shocks would result in greater current account divergences between member states. This paper finds that divergences across euro-area countries are smaller and have not risen relative to those across 13 other...