ASSESSMENT OF THE EXCHANGE RATE VOLATILITY IN NEW EU MEMBER STATES AND ROMANIA1

This paper assesses exchange rate volatility is four new EU member countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) and Romania. The study is motivated by the unavoidable participation of the new member states’ currencies in the Exchange Rate Mechanism II and fulfillment of the exchange rate stability convergence criterion. The results suggest decline of volatility and indicate that the Slovak koruna entered into the mechanism at optimal time. On the other hand, the admissible fluctuation band seems to be still too narrow for the remaining new members states’ currencies analyzed as well as the Romanian leu, thus they should remain out of ERM II for some time.