The enlargement of the European Union raises a series of questions related to new member states' entry to the EU's exchange rate mechanism II (ERM II) and their subsequent adoption of the euro. This paper considers how to determine the best initial central parity for new EU member states from...

This study analyses the impact of economic catching-up on annual inflation rates in the European Union with a special focus on the new member countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Using an array of estimation methods, we show that the Balassa-Samuelson effect is not an important driver of...