Part of the Polish transformation process has been an opening of the domestic financial market to foreign entrants. While the number of MNBs rises from zero to fifteen within six years, the ratio of bank credit to private and public enterprises relative to GDP decreases continuously after 1991....

This paper examines whether economic integration favors countries' convergence into a common cone of diversification. We analyze the manufacturing specialization patterns for a sample of 19 current and potential European Union countries over the period 1963-1998, and assess the impact of...

This paper investigates the issue of real and nominal economic convergence of transition economies in two distinct ways: i) within their own groups as in Koèenda (2001) and ii) to the European Union (EU). We extend Koèenda’s study not only by using a more stable period (post-93) but also by...

This paper uses a semi-structural dynamic modelling approach to investigate asymmetric monetary transmission in Europe. A system of equations containing reaction functions for monetary policy, output and inflation equations is simultaneously estimated for France, Germany, and Italy. Extensive...

The Eurosystem is the fifth decentralized system in the history of central banks. It consists of the European Central Bank (ECB) and twelve National Central Banks (NCBs) forming the European Monetary Union (EMU). The stark decentrality of this System is so little known that ubiquitous statements...

This paper proposes a new monetary policy framework for effectively navigating the path to adopting the euro. The proposed policy is based on relative inflation forecast targeting and incorporates an ancillary target of declining exchange rate risk, which is suggested as a key criterion for...

A quota on foreign competition will generally lead to quality-upgrading (downgrading) of the low-quality (high-quality) firm, an increase in average quality, a reduction of quality differentiation, and a reduction of domestic consumer surplus, irrespective of whether the foreign firm produces...