This paper studies the determinants of house prices in eight transition economies of central and eastern Europe (CEE) and 19 OECD countries. The main question addressed is whether the conventional fundamental determinants of house prices, such as GDP per capita, real interest rates, housing...

This paper analyses evidence on macroeconomic adjustments to large changes in current account imbalances – both deficits and surpluses. It studies annual data on key macroeconomic variables for 26 advanced and emerging market economies (EMEs) between 1980 and 2012. We find that large...

This paper aims to explain differences in inflation between six central European economies – Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – and the euro area in terms of differences in productivity growth between tradable and non-tradable sectors. The coverage of...

The unemployment rate in Estonia rose sharply in 2010 to one of the highest levels in the EU, after the country entered a severe recession in 2008. While the rate declined relatively rapidly in 2011, it remained high especially for the less educated. In 2009, the Employment Contract Law relaxed...

This symposium includes four papers dealing with labour market-related issues. The papers examine the impacts of the recent financial and economic crisis on labour market outcomes, changes in wage inequality and how the impacts of policies are influenced (amplified or attenuated) by financial...

This paper analyses the equilibrium level of private credit to GDP in 11 Central and Eastern European countries in order to see whether the high credit growth recently observed in some of these countries led to above equilibrium private credit-to-GDP levels. We use estimation results obtained...