This article studies inflation persistence with time-varying coefficient autoregressions for 12 central European countries in comparison with the United States and the euro area. We find that inflation persistence tends to be higher in times of high inflation. Since the oil price shocks,...

We study the transmission of monetary policy to macroeconomic variables with structural time-varying coefficient vector autoregressions in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, in comparison with that in the euro area. These three countries have experienced changes in monetary policy regimes...

The Euro and Economic Stability assesses the euro area’s merits as a shelter and the merits of euro assets as a safe haven and reviews the case for rapid euro adoption from a post-crisis view. Policymakers and economists provide relevant lessons from euro area divergences for future euro...

This paper describes the particular impacts of the financial and economic crisis on Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries; studies pro-cyclicality of fiscal policies; discusses the impact of the crisis on fiscal policy; and takes a look at the policy response of various governments. After...

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)...

After the introduction of a preannounced crawling peg exchange rate regime in Hungary in March 1995, forward and futures rates of more than six months maturity exceeded the upper edge of the projected target zone of the Forint. This paper examines whether this fact reflects an additional...

The drift-adjustment method estimates the expected rate of depreciation within an exchange rate band by simple equations. Papers applying this method claim that, while forecasting a freely floating currency is hopeless, predicting an exchange rate within the future band is successful. This paper...