The government has continued to pursue an unconventional strategy for economic recovery. Despite improved market sentiment which has eased financing constraints, the economic outlook remains difficult and large external and public financing needs leave Hungary exposed to risks. Maintaining...

Non-performing loans (NPLs) were found to respond to macroeconomic conditions, such as GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation; there are also strong feedback effects from the banking system to the real economy. This suggests that the high NPLs that many CESEE countries currently face adversely...

This paper reviews key areas of central banking reform in a sample of centrally planned economies undergoing transition to market-based systems. The discussion draws mainly on the experiences of four countries, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and China. Significant efforts have been made, or...

This paper compares the effective rates of taxation faced by a representative investor located in a major capital-exporting country for investments in machinery and buildings in nine capital-importing European countries. Poland and Hungary are found to have relatively high effective tax rates on...

This paper examines the relationship between macroeconomic stabilization and market-oriented reform in planned economies. It emphasizes that market-oriented reform should enhance the likelihood that adjustment to exogenous disturbances will involve genuine adjustment in the sense of actually...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes empirically the main determinants of Hungary’s inflation rate during 1990–96. Although there exist a number of possible methodologies to analyze this issue, the one proposed in the paper takes explicit account of the time-series properties of the variables...

This paper reviews economic developments in Hungary during 1993–94. The downward trend in measured aggregate output that had begun in 1990 reached its trough during 1993, and Hungary recorded its first positive GDP growth in five years in 1994. At the same time, progress with respect to...

In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country

This Selected Issues paper on Hungary presents an empirical analysis of the leading indicators for inflation and models the determinants of inflation. It summarizes current knowledge about the behavior of inflation and thus underpins the subsequent discussion of possible changes to the current...

This Selected Issues paper on Hungary describes the main factors behind the evolution of output in Hungary since 1990, and examines Hungary’s future growth prospects with specific focus on the role that structural and macroeconomic policies can play in enhancing those prospects. In this paper,...