A number of authors have used the concept of an optimum currency area (or OCA) index to assess the relative proximity of various pairs of economies to the ideal of an optimum currency area. Alas, a significant deficiency of this approach as used so far is that it provides no room for long-term...

Learning process is a new approach of filling the gap between adaptive expectations and rational expectations. Private agents are learning new information and adjust their expectation about the inflation and output gap. Central bank transparency is one of the key factors of learning by private...

The paper evaluates some policy dilemmas the Czech monetary policy will face on the way towards adopting common currency. The assessment of the inflation criterion concentrates on the potential clash with so called real convergence showing that alleged negative influences on the catching-up...

The paper discusses the phenomenon of long-term real equilibrium appreciation of the koruna in the context of economic, i.e. nominal and real convergence. The real appreciation can take place either through a nominal exchange rate channel or through inflation differential channel vis-á-vis the...

This paper studies bank-failure models in the context of transition economies. In order to capture the default risk of banks, data on the structure of retail deposit rates is used to improve the prognostic quality of bank-failure prediction. The Czech bank crisis of 1994?1996, during which 14...

The author of this paper criticizes the broad, cash-flow based concepts of seignorage that were introduced and emphasized by the economic literature of the 1990s (i.e., fiscal seignorage, total seignorage, etc.), which the author argues are ill justified and confusing. On the other hand, the two...

The article contains a general analysis of the exchange rate convergence process of EU and eurozone-candidate countries. Emphasis is given to an analysis of the exchange rate policy of member states within the ERM/ERM2 mechanism (beginning several years before the introduction of the euro) and...

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 contains a general analysis of the exchange rate convergence process of EU and eurozone-candidate countries. Emphasis is given to an analysis of the exchange rate policy of member states within the ERM/ERM2 mechanism (beginning several years before the introduction of the euro) and...

The article is a general analysis of the exchange rate convergence process for EU and Eurozone candidate countries. The introduction states that exchange rate strategies of candidate countries have to be consistent with the „acquis communataire“ from beginning to end. For these countries,...