Updated wiiw forecasts for 2004 and 2005 (by Peter Havlik and Leon Podkaminer) Bulgaria economy keeps growing fuelled by credit expansion (by Anton Mihailov) Countries covered Bulgaria Romania booming, but cumbersome years ahead until EU accession (by Gábor Hunya) Countries covered Romania...

Export quality indicators for the transition countries (by Robert Stehrer, pp. 1-3) Countries covered Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, China Topics International Trade and Competitiveness On the profitability of Austrian...

Slovakia after the elections (by Doris Hanzl-Weiss; pp. 1-3) Keywords Elections, Fiscal policy Countries covered Slovakia Topics Macroeconomic Analysis and Policy Labour market issues in Europe’s Eastern and Western Balkan neighbours (by Hermine Vidovic; pp. 4-9) Keywords Labour market,...

Summary Despite near stagnation in the euro area and the negative impact of the Ukraine crisis, in most of the NMS economies and some of the Western Balkan countries growth prospects are viewed as positive. While the NMS economies will preserve their positive growth differential vis-à-vis the...

Growth in the CESEE region will follow the unimpressive pattern displayed by the euro area. The longer-term convergence of income levels in the CESEE countries can no longer be expected to be as rapid as was assumed a decade or so ago. Growth in the period 2015-2017 is not going to deviate...

The outlook for the world economy has improved in the course of 2010 and the recovery has gained strength in the EU as well. The Central, East and Southeast European countries (CESEE) have also recovered from the crisis; the majority of them recorded positive GDP growth. On average, the recent...

For 2011 the wiiw central scenario envisages further improvements in the economic performance of those countries that were still stagnating or contracting in 2010 (Bulgaria, Latvia, Romania, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro). However, in those countries that performed reasonably well in 2010...

A cross-country regression relating the relative price level to the relative GDP level is statistically significant and stable over time. Price and GDP levels for EU member countries tend to gravitate to that line. The conclusion that there is a shorter-term trade-off between fast real...

European Comparison Project data (years 1999-2008) are used for an estimation of cross-country systems (AIDS) of consumer demand functions defined over durable and non-durable tradable goods and non-tradable services. General exchange equilibrium models of inter-EU trade generate equalized...