This paper estimates the Balassa-Samuelson effects for 11 countries in central and eastern Europe on a disaggregated set of quarterly data covering the period from the mid-1990s to the first quarter of 2008. The Balassa-Samuelson effects are clearly present and explain around 24% of inflation...

The present paper is concerned with the prospect of euro adoption in Romania. The study starts from the relevant literature of the Optimum Currency Areas and identifies the most widely acknowledged meta property and methodological model for this purpose: the SVAR Blanchard and Quah decomposition...

The monetary union between most of the EU countries started on January 1, 1999 as a result of a macroeconomic convergence process in the light of the Maastricht Treaty of 1991. Meanwhile, ten formerly eastern block countries and the Southern Section of Cyprus are preparing their economy for a...

Is inflation persistence in the new EU Member States (NMS) comparable to that in the euro area countries? We argue that persistence may not be as different between the two country groups as one might expect. We confirm that one should work carefully with the usual estimation methods when...

This paper was commissioned by DG ECFIN from the EU Commission as part of the "EMU@10" project and is published in Hungarian language by the permission of the EU Commission. The original English language version of the paper is available at:...

The paper discusses the risks and challenges faced by the new members on the road to the euro and the strategies for and timing of euro adoption. We investigate the real-nominal convergence nexus from the perspective of euro area entry. We argue that the initial level of economic development as...

Following their EU accession, the new member countries from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) must achieve sustainable price stability as one of the pre-conditions for joining the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and adopting the euro. This paper examines the distribution dynamics of inflation...

In this paper we investigate the effects of EU enlargement on price convergence. The internal market is expected to boost integration and increase efficiency and welfare through a convergence of prices in product markets. Two principal drivers are crucial to explain price developments. On the...

The present study sheds light on important aspects of monetary integration in the European Union involving the newest member states. It assesses the degree to which they satisfy the business cycle correlation criteria.Our results demonstrate that there is a common business cycle in the Euro area...