This study proposes relative inflation forecast targeting as an operational framework of monetary policy for adopting the euro by the EU new Member States. This strategy assumes containing differentials between the domestic and the eurozone inflation forecasts as an operational target. A model...

Zimbabwe faces growth and external competitiveness challenges, as indicated by its low trend growth and investment, declining share in the world exports, high current account deficits, and external debt. The stock-flow approach to the equilibrium exchange rate reveals that the real exchange rate...

We demonstrate that bond yield compression is under way in the countries converging to the euro and that German yields are significant drivers of local currency yields. Based on the evidence from Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, we conclude that these new Member States of the European...

What are the prospects for New Member States to join the euro-zone in the not too distant future? They seem to be in a catch-22 situation Because of the current financial crisis some Maastricht criteria would be more difficult to fulfil in the short and medium term, which would make it hard for...

Disinflation has been pursued successfully in Romania in recent years. Inflation came down from over 40 per cent in 2001 to 14 per cent in 2003 and is expected to be cca 9.5 per cent in 2004. By 2007 it should come down to around 3%. The benefits of a lowinflation environment are unquestionable,...

The aim of this paper is to examine the monetary policy actions through which the central banks in the Sub-Saharan African countries have searched to eliminate the negative impacts of the shocks facing their economies. We compare two types of monetary policy regimes: a currency board regime (in...

The paper analyzes investment behavior of industrial enterprises in the period immediately following price and foreign trade liberalization in the Czech Republic. It also focuses on the effect of "soft" macroeconomic environment on the microeconomic decisions. A dynamic investment function with...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the fiscal characteristics of the new members in the light of the requirements of the SGP and the criticisms levelled against the Pact and to see in what ways their initial conditions differ from those faced by the current euro zone countries in the run-up...

The expansion of regionalism has spawned an extensive theoretical literature analyzing the effects of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) on trade flows. In this paper we focus on FTAs (also called European agreements) between the European Union (EU-15) and the Central and Eastern European countries...

The impact of macroeconomic management (monetary policy) and administrative price adjustments on price variability in a low inflation economy characterized by relatively frequent administrative price adjustments is examined. Fluctuations of market determined prices, prices of agricultural goods...