In this paper we analyse the impact of monetary policy on total bank lending in the presence of a developed market for foreign currency denominated loans and potential substitutability between domestic and foreign currency loans. Our results, based on a panel of four biggest Central European...

We investigate the impact of fiscal variables on bond yield spreads relative to US Treasury bonds in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey from May 1998 to December 2007. To account for the importance of market expectations we use projected values for fiscal and macroeconomic...

The paper analyses the potential for lending booms in the three biggest new EU Member States (the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) during the process of euro adoption. Experiences of some old members (Greece, Ireland and Portugal) and the econometric evidence speak in favour of strong loan...

This paper uses data on currency options prices for the exchange rates of the three largest new EU member states Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary vis-à-vis the euro and the US dollar to estimate the risk-neutral density (RND) functions and the density interval bands. Analysing the RNDs, we...

Workers' remittances have become the second largest source of net financial flows to developing countries. However, the main motives for sending remittances remain controversial. This paper examines the importance of altruistic versus investment motives using a new panel data set of bilateral...

In view of the increasing use of Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models in the macroeconomic projections and the policy process, this paper examines, both conceptually and empirically, alternative notions of potential output within DSGE models. Furthermore, it provides historical...

This paper examines two competing approaches for calculating current account benchmarks, i.e. the external sustainability approach á la Lane and Milesi-Ferretti (LM) versus the structural current accounts literature (SCA) based on panel econometric techniques. The aim is to gauge the medium...