Similarity of Supply and Demand Shocks Between the Euro Area and the CEECs

We assess the correlation of supply and demand shocks between the countries of the euro area and the accession countries in the 1990s. Shocks are recovered from estimated structural VAR models of output growth and inflation. We find that some accession countries have a quite high correlation of the underlying shocks with the euro area. However, even for many advanced accession countries, the shocks remain significantly more idiosyncratic. Continuing integration within the EU is likely to align the business cycles of these countries similarly to the sync