Monetary policies of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have undergone a significant transformation in the 1990s. The initial currency peg and the exchange-rate-based monetary policy has been gradually replaced by more flexible exchange rates and money-based policies. Preparations for...

This study reviews monetary policy options that are seemingly viable for adopting the euro by the new Member States of the European Union. A fully autonomous direct inflation targeting is believed to be suboptimal for convergence to the euro as it does not incorporate convergence parameters into...

This Chapter presents an overview of the fundamental goals and economic effects of divergent strategies applied by the six leading EU candidates, namely Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Estonia. The general assumption is that the applicants with well-developed and...

This paper quantifies transparency of monetary policy in the three EU New Member States that have adopted direct inflation targeting strategy. Two measures of transparency are applied. The institutional measure reflects the extent to which a central bank discloses information that is related to...

This paper proposes a new monetary policy framework for effectively navigating the path to adopting the euro. The proposed policy is based on relative inflation forecast targeting and incorporates an ancillary target of declining exchange rate risk, which is suggested as a key criterion for...

This study examines the link between various monetary policy regimes and the ability to manage inflation and exchange rate risk premiums in the EU candidate countries as they undergo monetary convergence to the eurozone. The underlying hypothesis is that a system of 'flexible inflation...

This study proposes the adoption of money growth rules as indicator variables of monetary policies by the countries converging to a common currency system, in particular, by the eurozone candidate countries. The analytical framework assumes an inflation target as the ultimate policy goal. The...

A flexible approach to direct inflation targeting is a viable monetary policy choice for transition economies that is believed to facilitate both the economic transition and the monetary convergence to the euro. Following this assumption, an analytical model investigating the link between the...

This study investigates the link between the inflation risk and the exchange rate risk premiums in the six emerging market economies that have abandoned currency pegs and adopted independent monetary policies with flexible exchange rates. These risk premiums are examined in the selected Asian...