The paper discusses the strong output decline in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It starts from the puzzling observation that the former CSFR, Hungary and Poland experienced a relatively similar decline in output in spite of completely different stabilization and transformation...

The first part of the paper analyzes the inflationary risks associated with price liberalization, the welfare costs of inflation and the difficulties of East European central banks in pursuing non-inflationary policies. The main obstacles are the low credibility of stabilization policies and a...

The paper analyses the role of currency convertibility in the process of economic transition in Eastern Europe and discusses alternative institutional options for achieving this difficult task. It shows that an early transition to convertibility is an indispensable requirement for the success of...