In this article, it is argued that the economic and political transformation in Central and Eastern European countries towards the end of the twentieth century towards a market economy were irreversible and path dependent. The author discusses the importance of this issue for the success of...

According to the traditional 'optimum currency area' approach, not much will be lost from a very hard peg to a currency union if there has been little reason for variations in the exchange rate. This paper takes a different approach and highlights the fact that high exchange rate volatility may...