The main aim of this paper is to examine the exchange rate behavior of a group of four transitional, EU accession countries, with a view to making policy recommendations regarding their accession to full European Monetary Union. We employ a dynamic OLS panel estimator to investigate the relative...

Credit to the private sector has risen rapidly in many Central and Eastern European EU Member States (MS) and acceding countries (AC) in recent years. The lending boom has recently been particularly strong in the segment of loans to households, primarily mortgage-based housing loans, and in...

In this paper we propose an alternative explanation for the nature, sources and consequences of inflation rate differentials in a monetary union, such as EMU. To achieve this, we build on the new neoclassical synthesis (NNS) framework, recently advanced by Goodfriend (2002) and Goodfriend and...

We propose an alternative explanation for the nature, sources and consequences of inflation rate differentials in a monetary union, such as the euro area. We build on the new neoclassical synthesis (NNS) framework, recently advanced by Goodfriend [Goodfriend, M. 2002. Monetary Policy in the New...

The Greek bail-out was highly controversial. An oft-heard assessment is that i) the bail-out was a mistake, ii) the political haggling over it was irrational and iii) the bail-out will create a moral hazard problem. Contrary to this view, our analysis suggests that, given EMU’s present...

This study argues that the key issue for defining and solving the Eurozone’s (EZ) difficulties lies in readjusting the relationship between the centre and the periphery of the EZ. Our argument proceeds in two steps. Firstly, the basic finance problem of a centre-periphery system is captured by...