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,...

This article attempts to answer a few open questions related to price convergence in the Czech Republic and in other Central and Eastern European Countries toward prices in the European Union. The authors address the following issues: First, what, from the theoretical viewpoint, should the...

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...

During 1930s and 1940s Josef Macek developed monetary theory leading to monetary policy recommendations which are deeply influenced by macroeconomic theory of John Maynard Keynes. Macek became leading Czech left-wing keynesian. His theory of money was nominalist and similarly to J. M. Keynes and...

New members of the EU will not form an optimum currency area with the present eurozone member states. The article discusses some costs and benefits of an early EMU entry for the Czech Republic (and other Central-European economies). The authors concentrate on the consequences of loss of...

The article deals with the relationship of post-Keynesian economics to new consensus as a theoretical framework of inflation targeting. First, new consensus with its roots in Wicksell´s approach is briefly introduced. In the next parts differences and meeting-points of new consensus and...

The authors contend that the theory of optimum currency areas (OCA) provides a useful framework for discussions of monetary integration. The authors summarize the historical development of monetary integration and discuss possible future development. Theoretical issues, such as those raised in...

The article is concerned with analysis of independence of central banks of the EU Member States within the framework of the ESCB, as well as independence and responsibility of the ECB, and suggests an alternative institutional embodiment of its position, reflecting the specific framework of the...

The main goal of this paper is to analyse the process of price convergence (beta and sigma convergence) in new EU Member States towards the Euro area (EU-12). The theoretical part of the paper consists of a brief overview of methods that are employed for analyses of the process of price...

This paper begins with a description of simple select models of inflation and their ability to fit the data. The paper in turn measures the stability of particular parsimonious models. One-step forecast tests are applied, which establish the instability of the money demand model compared with...