The article deals with the role of the central banks in advanced market economies and the theoretical possibility of abolishing these institutions. Central banks have monopolies in some areas, especially regarding monetary policy. In many countries, central banks also have monopolies in other...

There are three possible price movements in a market economy: stability, inflation, and deflation. Inflation and deflation are defined in this article as changes in the purchasing power of money caused by the money creation. Inflation and deflation have many asymmetric, and even some symmetric,...

The article summarizes the main points discussed at the seminar on Monetary Policy during Very Low Inflation, held by the Czech Economic Association in June 2003. There were two main speakers at the seminar. The first was Jan Frait (Czech National Bank), who summarized the main ideas of...

The membership of the Czech Republic in the European Union has a number of economic, institutional and law implication. All new EU members must undertake to introduce the euro once the conditins are right for doing so. To this end, convergence programes for member states have been put in place -...

The coordination of the economic policies of the EU Member countries started in the early 90´ s has become a permanent feature of the European integration process. Gradually a rather complicated mechanism has evolved aiming to combine and complement policies pursued at EU level with policies...