E63 - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury PolicyReturn

The paper examines development of economic balance and efficiency of monetary and fiscal policy in the Czech Republic and Slovakia during the crisis with the help of empirical verification of Robert Mundell's model of effective market classification. Our main findings show that although there was no direct 'loser' during the crisis, the Czech Republic seemed to have better coped with its economic imbalances due to the independence of its monetary policy. Slovakia, on the contrary, has preserved several problems on the side of external balance. However, as both countries show certain differences, it is impossible to assess whether the euro adoption had the same effect on both of them. In general, the paper contributes to the research on the Czech and Slovak economy and euro area membership.

The fiscal deficits in the majority of transition countries continue to deteriorate and pose risks for the sustainability of public finances in the longer time horizon. Due to short time span and data limitation (1993 - 2003) I concentrate on the short-run dynamics using fixed-effect model with panel data. I found a very small effects of fiscal deficits on inflation for the group of Visegrad countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) with slightly better results after the exclusion of Poland. The perspective of adopting the euro in the horizon of several years has prevented until now the use of surprise inflation to reduce the real burden of servicing the increasing public debt. In the periods of social conflicts which are likely to characterize times of delayed fiscal reforms the temptation to resort to seignorage may become more stronger than nowadays.

This essay is concerned with the long term period, i.e. what will happen after accession to the EU. For those long term analyses, it is practical to identify different phases after accession to the EU - the period before the anticipated participation in the ERM II, the period of participation in the ERM II and the period of membership in the eurozone. These periods bring different costs, benefits and risks and they allow for different possibilities of economic policy, especially monetary policy (exchange rate policy included). The five following issues are dealt with in this essay: the speed of joining the eurozone after accession to the EU, the danger of speculative attacks on local currencies while participating in the ERM II, instability of public finances and its impact, possible real price shocks with their economic consequences and economic growth for convergence with the EU average.