This paper analyses the Balassa and Samuelson hypothesis in two groups of European countries: six New Member States (NMS) and six advanced EU-15 economies. It is found that the second stage of the hypothesis, which relates relative sector prices with the real exchange rate, does not hold...

This study analyzes the relationships between domestic and foreign output gaps, current-account imbalances, and real effective exchange-rate (REER) misalignments. We first set up a theoretical framework based on the elasticities and absorption approaches of the balance of payments to derive and...