Most of the newly acceded central and east European EU countries are among the main beneficiaries of EU Cohesion Policy. The main objective of this policy is to improve the long-term growth and employment prospects of the supported regions, and thereby to support convergence towards higher...

A high degree of correlation among the business cycles of individual countries is usually seen as a key criterion for an optimum currency area. However, the elasticity with which countries react to the common cycle is equally important. A country with a non-unitary growth elasticity relative to...