Comparative analysis of the exchange market pressure in Central European countries with the Eurozone membership perspective

This paper estimates the exchange market pressure (EMP) in four Central European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) during the period 1993-2006. Therefore, it is one of very few studies focused on this region and the very first paper applying concurrently model-dependent as well as model-independent approach to the EMP estimation on these countries. The results obtained suggest that the approaches are not compatible and lead to absolutely inconsistent findings. They often differ in both identification of principal development trends and estimated magnitude and direction of the pressure. Therefore, any general conclusion on those issues is hard to draw. The paper provides evidence that a shift in the exchange rate regime towards the quasi-fixed ERM II should not lead to increasing EMP. However, it is highly probable that some episodes of the excessive EMP will make the fulfillment of the exchange rate stability criterion more difficult in all countries analyzed unless the criterion will have eased.