We investigate whether information sharing among banks has affected credit market performance in the transition countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, using a large sample of firm-level data. Our estimates show that information sharing is associated with improved availability...

In this paper we investigate whether banks that borrow from other banks have lower risk levels. We concentrate on a large sample of Central and Eastern European banks which allows us to explore the impact of interbank lending when exposures are long-term and interbank borrowers are small banks....

This paper tries to assess how costly it would be for the CEECs to peg their exchange rates to the Euro. We use three types of criteria: institutional (the Maastricht criteria); some measure of real convergence; and the Optimal Currency Area criteria. The institutional criteria seem to be an...

Economic and monetary reunification in Germany has proved to be more expensive than previously thought - and not just for the Germans. If a `Mezzogiorno' problem of continuing fiscal transfers to the East and possible migration flows westwards are to be avoided, there must be convergence in...