Capital markets are regarded as “the barometer” of economic activity at the national level, but among emerging markets, the position of this segment in the economy is far from ideal. The answers that we try to offer are concerning the contribution of capital markets to the economic welfare...

The question of whether or not increased stock market size allows for improved financing conditions for firms in emerging markets is an important one for policy-making. This paper seeks to investigate this issue by analyzing whether increases in market-level liquidity have indeed trickled down...

Since the onset of the global financial market turbulence in mid-2007 there have been concerns whether and to what extent the unfolding liquidity squeeze may affect banks in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE). In this note, we present systematic regional and cross-country...

The transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe are trying to construct viable modern financial markets which provide a wide range of financial instruments. The paper focuses on the evolution of exchange-traded derivatives in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania. The results...

A key component of economic globalization, foreign direct investment (FDI) plays a special role in stimulating the growth of countries’ competitiveness. This book provides a comprehensive insight into the relationship between foreign direct investment and economic growth, with a special focus...

Austrian banks are heavily engaged in Central and Eastern European (CEE) markets primarily by running local subsidiaries but also by extending cross-border loans. We give an account of the historical development and the status quo of these exposures and conduct a stress test for the Austrian...

The so-called German Dominance Hypothesis (GDH) claimed that Bundesbank policies were transmitted into other European Monetary System (EMS) interest rates during the pre-euro era. We reformulate this hypothesis for the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries that are on the verge of...

This paper introduces a model, based on the Kalman filter framework, which allows for latent factors, time varying parameters, and a general GARCH structure for the residuals, extending the Bekaert and Harvey (1997) model. With this extension it is possible to test if an emerging stock market...

This study focuses on the diversification benefits of the most developed equity markets of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). To evaluate these benefits of diversification we use so-called spanning tests based on a stochastic discount factor approach and estimated by General Methods of Moments...

This paper introduces a model, based on the Kalman filter framework, which allows for time varying parameters, latent factors, and a general GARCH structure for the residuals. With this extension of the Bekaert and Harvey (1997) model it is possible to test if an emerging stock market becomes...