This paper investigates the importance of the Balassa-Samuelson effect for two acceding countries (Bulgaria and Romania), two accession countries (Croatia and Turkey) and two CIS countries (Russia and Ukraine). The paper first studies the basic assumptions of the Balassa-Samuelson effect using...

This paper analyses the equilibrium level of private credit to GDP in 11 Central and Eastern European countries in order to see whether the high credit growth recently observed in some of these countries led to above equilibrium private credit-to-GDP levels. We use estimation results obtained...

The authors attempt to analyze the direct impact of exchange rate volatility on the export performance of ten Central and Eastern European transition economies, as well as its indirect impact via changes in exchange rate regimes. Not only aggregate but also bilateral and sectoral export flows...

Investment in network infrastructure – the energy, water, transport and telecommunication networks – which performs a vital role for the functioning of the economy, can contribute to raising growth and social welfare. But more is not always better. While the paper shows that investment in...

This paper surveys recent advances in empirical studies of the monetary transmission mechanism (MTM), with special attention to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Our results indicate that the strength of the exchange rate pass-through substantially declined over time mainly due to a fall in...

This paper finds that coherent regulatory policies can boost investment in network industries of OECD economies. Rate-of-return regulation is generally thought to result in overinvestment, while incentive regulation is believed to entail underinvestment. Yet, previous empirical work has...

Investment in network infrastructure can boost long-term economic growth in OECD countries. Moreover, infrastructure investment can have a positive effect on growth that goes beyond the effect of the capital stock because of economies of scale, the existence of network externalities and...

This paper studies drivers of high-frequency (daily) dynamics of the South African rand vis-à-vis the dollar from January 2001 to July 2007. We find strong nonlinear effects of commodity prices, perceived country and emerging market risk premium and changes in the dollar-euro exchange rate on...

The ambition of this paper is to analyse real exchange rate dynamics in Macedonia relying on a highly disaggregated dataset. We complement the indirect evidence reported in Loko and Tuladhar (2005) and we provide direct evidence on the irrelevance of the Balassa-Samuelson effect for overall...

This paper attempts to analyze the direct impact of exchange rate volatility on the export performance of ten Central and Eastern European transition economies as well as its indirect impact via changes in exchange rate regimes. Not only aggregate but also bilateral and sectoral export flows are...