In this paper we analyze the degree of competition in the Hungarian household credit and deposit markets. We estimate discrete-choice, multinomial logit deposit service and loan demand functions for each bank and calculate the corresponding price elasticities. Two models of the banking industry...

During the last decade the development of the banking sectors in CEC5 countries was greatly determined by increasing presence of foreign banks. Foreign banks played a significant role in privatising, re-capitalising and modernising the banking sectors in the region. In this sense they...

This paper, using a stochastic dynamic general equilibrium framework, considers how a small open EMU accession country should choose its Euro conversion rate. In this model a monetary union is interpreted as a perfectly credible infinite nominal exchange rate peg, and an algorithm is provided...

It is generally recognized that countries wanting to join a monetary union should display the optimal currency area properties. One such property is the similarity of business cycles. We therefore undertook to analyze the synchronization of business cycles between the EMU and eight new EU...

This paper provides a statistical analysis of the components of real exchange rate in Hungary for the period 1991-1996. The real exchange rate is decomposed into a tradable and a nontradable rate. The following main conclusions are valid: 1. The Balassa-Samuelson effect, which presumes a real...

This paper presents new evidence on the patterns of price and wage adjustment in European firms and on the extent of nominal rigidities. It uses a unique dataset collected through a firm-level survey conducted in a broad range of countries and covering various sectors. Several conclusions are...

This paper empirically tests whether monetary policy can have a perverse effect on aggregate demand in emerging economies, because of short-term speculative inflows. For this purpose, a bayesian VAR is estimated on a panel of six major emerging countries. Monetary and risk shocks are identified...

Timely deliveries have become more important in international trade in the recent decades, mostly because of the spread of international production fragmentation. This paper provides empirical evidence on the cost of time in trade by looking at how faster trade within the European Union (EU)...

This paper presents new evidence on the flexibility of the Hungarian labor market, with special emphasis on wages. The results are based on a new survey on wage setting among Hungarian firms. The survey is part of the Eurosystem Wage Dynamics Network (WDN), and it is a harmonized questionnaire...