This paper reviews the contagion effects of the global financial crises of 1997-99 on five small open economies: the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Israel and Poland. We analyze how the financial markets of these countries were effected under different exchange rate regimes. We look at the...

It is generally recognized that countries wanting to join a monetary union should display the optimal currency area properties. One such property is the similarity of business cycles. We therefore undertook to analyze the synchronization of business cycles between the EMU and eight new EU...

Using a panel of 21 OECD countries and 40 years of annual data, we find that countries with similar government budget positions tend to have business cycles that fluctuate more closely. That is, fiscal convergence (in the form of persistently similar ratios of government surplus/deficit to GDP)...

Using a panel of 21 OECD countries and 40 years of annual data, we find that countries with similar government budget positions tend to have business cycles that fluctuate more closely. That is, fiscal convergence (in the form of persistently similar ratios of government surplus/deficit to GDP)...

This paper raises some specific issues concerning the choice of exchange rate regime in transition countries during the run-up to EU/EMU membership. It argues that there is no “one-size-fits-all” exchange rate regime that accession countries should uniformly adopt. It also argues that the...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the fiscal characteristics of the new members in the light of the requirements of the SGP and the criticisms levelled against the Pact and to see in what ways their initial conditions differ from those faced by the current euro zone countries in the run-up...

This paper reviews the reform of and current trends in the Hungarian banking system and draws some lessons that can be useful for countries where the reforms are less advanced. The point is made in the paper that since the weak financial position of state enterprises has been one of the major...

Potential output figures are important ingredients of many macroeconomic models and are routinely applied by policy makers and global agencies. Despite its widespread use, estimation of potential output is at best uncertain and depends heavily on the model. The task of estimating potential...

In open economies excess demand in the tradables sector often manfests itself in an external deficit instead of the employment gap that is applied in the usual Phillips-curve model. The inflationary pressure in this case arises from an expected or actual weakening of the exchange rate and its...

Income per capita of Hungary attained 70 percent of the Austrian level by the end of the eighteenth century and fluctuated around this value between the World Wars. As an „achievement” of the last 50 years this ratio — measured at purchasing power parity — has decreased to about 40...