Financial markets in the CE4 countries are still shallow compared to other advanced EU countries. While the government bond markets are comparable in size, measured by capitalization in percent of GDP, the private bond, private credit, and equity markets lag behind. Empirical analysis in this...

The paper assesses the financial situation of the health sector in the Slovak Republic. It also evaluates the efficiency of health expenditures and service delivery in comparison to the OECD and other new EU member states and suggests avenues for cost recovery and reform. The health sector of...

Analysis on macroeconomic determinants of protection in the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, and Poland, while subject to many caveats, suggests that appreciation of the real exchange rate was the main macroeconomic determinant of trade policy reversals in the 1990s. This suggests that...

This Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix examines external competitiveness and the exchange rate for the Slovak Republic. The paper describes two simple types of competitiveness indicators: (i) real effective exchange rate measures, which examine underlying fundamentals thought to...

This paper reviews economic developments in the Slovak Republic during 1994–97. In 1996, a large current account deficit emerged as domestic demand surged by more than 20 percent. At the same time, fiscal policy became expansionary, with the fiscal position turning from surplus to deficit....

The government has begun implementing an ambitious program of banking sector and enterprise reform in 1999. A key aspect of this program is the restructuring and privatization of three large state-owned banks. As a by-product of the bank restructuring, the bad assets carved out from the banks...

The Slovak economy showed recovery from sharp recession. Executive Directors suggested that restoring fiscal sustainability and removing unemployment while maintaining external competitiveness within the monetary union should be given priority. The fiscal consolidation strategy could be...