In August 1998 the Russian foreign exchange market and financial system collapsed. As a consequence the rouble devaluated in real terms against the currencies of the main trade partners, generating an output push in the agri-food sector. This improved the financial health of most producer, thus...

Growth empirics with institutional measures is performed for 25 transition countries overthe period 1990-95. Estimation results suggest that (particularly state) institutions aresignificant for growth and, especially, foreign direct investment (FDI), the latter in turnbeing important for the...

We provide the first test of the Hoff and Stiglitz (2004) model predicting whether and under what conditions mass privatizations are accompanied by asset stripping. In addition to directly testing the theory, we also tackle an important policy-oriented issue of why a large number of efficient...

For many decades culture has been considered to have a significant impact on the productivity of people. This study observes for the Russian Federation, on the basis of the ARENA study by Sreda, the impact of the share of the most prominent religious groups on economic output as well as on...

This paper examines inflation dynamics in the current EU-accession countries in central and eastern Europe, focusing particularly on the determinants of 'dual inflation', that is, diverging inflation rates for tradable and non-tradable goods. The paper draws on the recently published data for...

This paper explains the various concepts of government debt in the euro area with particular emphasis on its size and composition. In terms of size, the paper focuses on different definitions that are in use, in particular the concept of gross general government debt used in the surveillance of...

Undoubtedly, oil prices play a crucial role in the macroeconomic performances of oil-exporting developing countries. In this regard, the exchange rate is one of the key macroeconomic indicators worthy of investigation. Existing literature shows that world oil prices play an important role in the...

Since 1990, countries in emerging Europe and Central Asia have undergone comprehensive economic transformation. These reforms helped achieve an impressive degree of income convergence toward the levels of the advanced economies, although at the cost of rising inequality and lower life...

This report provides an overview of macro-economic developments in 1999 and discusses the economic outlook for the next two years. It covers twelve transition countries Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia (FYRM), Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine and...

For the first time since the transformation began, all transition economies recorded GDP growth in the year 2000. Some of the traditional 'losers' grew much faster than the traditional 'winners' of the transition process. The average growth rate in the region more than doubled and the...