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Based on a general equilibrium model, this study finds that real output in Estonia is positively associated with real quantity of money and negatively influenced by real depreciation of the kroon, real stock prices, and the expected inflation rate. Government deficit spending is found to be insignificant. Policy implications are that fiscal discipline pursued by the Estonian government is appropriate, that a stronger currency may better serve Estonia, and that the wealth effect of an increase in the stock price on real money balances is greater than the substitution effect.

In the period of 1991-96 there were large volumes of foreign direct investment directed to various Czech manufacturing industries and services. Our empirical analysis has shown that enterprises of the manufacturing sector, into which the foreign capital was invested, were generally physical capital intensive and labor saving. At the same time, both capital and labor efficiencies in firms with FDI have been significantly above the domestic average. Another salient feature of the FDI enterprises is that they are very export intensive and, on the input side, they have a higher proportion of material inputs and thus relatively lower proportion of value added.

Within the non-stochastic dynamic general equilibrium model framework this paper examines the implications of alternative fiscal consolidation programs for small open economy. The calibrated model enables realistically quantify the impact of the deficit financing and fiscal consolidation on consumption and saving of households, investment of firms and thereby on the capital stock and real interest rates. Through the interest rate link the impact of deficit financing and fiscal consolidation on cyclical and long-term properties of monetary policy set-up can be observed. Several fiscal consolidations were simulated in order to demonstrate the comparative statics and differences in dynamic paths of above mentioned variables.

This paper analyses the trade flows and tariff rates of environmental goods in the Czech Republic in the period 1993 - 2002. The analysis is based on environmental goods' categories according to "OECD list of environmental goods". The export and import of environmental goods is investigated also from the foreign trade territorial structure point of view. The five indicators have been used to describe the achieved level of trade liberalization in environmental goods in the Czech Republic.

Gross domestic product continued to grow in 2002, faster than in the economies of most of the Czech Republic's major partners, albeit at a slower pace than in 2001. The major driving force of economic growth was private consumption, followed by government consumption. Investment demand registered a slowdown as an indirect result of weak foreign demand. 2002 was the year of record-low inflation in the history of the Czech Republic - at the end of the year, the consumer price index stood at 0.6 %. During 2002, nominal appreciation of the Czech currency accelerated - the koruna appreciated against the euro by almost ten per cent. The labor market was severely hit by the general economic slowdown and the unemployment rate anew reached the record-high level at the end of the year.

The fundamental question which we deal with in this paper is: from which sources do organizations in Slovenia most frequently obtain new staff. We questioned 1,075 people who are employed. We discovered that more than 40 % of them became employed through personal contacts. This means that they know someone at the organization they are employed in. This type of employment procedure is not typical in the contemporary world. It was established that those who became employed because of personal contacts are not promoted any faster than those who became employed by normal application procedures. Therefore, the method of recruiting does not influence promotion.

The contribution of the "new economy" to economic growth in developing countries has so far been minimal. The "old economy" will for long be the fundamental force behind economic growth in transition economies. Nonetheless, in the longer run the "new economy" offers great potential for faster economic growth in post-socialist economies. Realizing this potential is, however, not automatic. It can be left unharnessed if there is no suitable institutional infrastructure, which would allow for adoption, diffusion, and productive use of information and communication technologies (ICT). The paper introduces a New Economy Indicator (NEI) measuring the level of preparedness of transition economies for harnessing the potential of ICT to accelerate the long-term economic growth and catching-up with developed countries. In the NEI ranking Slovenia scored the highest, followed by the Czech Republic and Hungary, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Yugoslavia occupy the bottom of the table.

The article tries to demonstrate important links between social structure and social policies. The post-communist state interferes more than other governments into social structure and supports strong actors. This hinders expansion of the main actor of a successful transition - the middle class. Its stagnation or adverse development causes that the social structure (disintegrated, polarized and unstable) implicitly becomes the main social problem itself which generates other "minor" problems. The middle-class perspective frames many tensions and there can be exhibited four of them: between pensioners and economically active; between working and non-working poor; between the middle class and other groups and between the entrepreneurial and white-collar middle class. Social cohesion cannot be reached by redistribution only. Redistribution must remain within restricted limits in order not to hinder social change by distorting individual motivation and personal effort. The delineation of such limits should also involve consideration of the social structure.

Banks played a central and, at times, controversial, role in the post-1989 transformation of the Czech economy. This article is trying to assess that role by setting it in a historical and comparative context. Economic historians have specified two broad models of banking behaviour, although the differences can be exaggerated. Transition economies show some common characteristics, but past history gave Czech banks a particularly important role and policy makers pursued a conception under which they would finance rapid economic transformation, partly following a model from the past. With varying degrees of willingness, established banks took on this role, undermining their own financial solidity. As the Czech road ran into difficulties, so a different conception of banks' development was adopted, closer to policies more familiar across Central and Eastern Europe.

This paper finds that poverty (the savings gap), income instability, and external factors that include debt service payments and capital flight to be the main causes of overseas borrowing by developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s. As far as the empirical strategy is concerned, the application of a panel data approach seems to be highly preferred, as it allows to control time-specific events that are linked to overseas borrowing, particularly given the rapid changes in the global macroeconomic environment in the past years. Moreover, this strategy helps to produce a more robust explanation by allowing to incorporate country-specific factors as developing countries themselves are heterogeneous in terms of their colonial heritages, geopolitical and strategic significance, and creditworthiness, all affecting the level of indebtedness and the potential bargaining power to manage the subsequent debt crisis.

The EU-25 will start operating on May 1, 2004. This paper reviews the position of the new Member States (NMS) in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) with respect to future adoption of euro. It argues that further integration in this area is much more about the deepening of the political integrity of the EU than about lowering transaction costs. However, a debate on the political and economic implications resulting from the adoption of euro by the NMS is full of unsolved issues. The central one is to define the possible scenario of the path to the euro. It implies actions on both sides: the NMS need to implement many economic reforms and enhance the political debate on the benefits of the euro adoption. The EU side must proceed with reforms, including the redefinition of the Stability and Growth Pact. The lack of reforms may hamper the political position of the EU.

The paper analyzes the relationship between saving and export in the Czech economy. Because the Czech economy has been increasingly trading with Western Europe, testing the relationship between these two variables is significant. OLS and 2SLS are applied to quarterly data between gross national savings, gross domestic product and exports over the period 1994 - 2001. The 2SLS procedure has also the advantage of identifying the underlying principles of the formal paradigm by means of instruments (productivity, real investments and unemployment). This study does lend support to the paradigm advanced by Maizels in 1968, which relates a country's increase in domestic savings to exports.

In this paper, the recent development of Czech interest rates during the Czech Republic's transition to a market economy is discussed. First, the situation in the economy and in the banking sector, as well as the monetary policy of the central bank during the period of 1990 - 1999 is presented. However, the main focus is on monetary policy instruments and their application during transition. The paper also describes the targeting of the central bank's policy by using direct limitations in banking during 1990 - 1991 and refinancing instruments exploited during the period of 1991 - 1992. Finally, the central bank's orientation towards free market operations, starting in 1993, is discussed.

From the comparisons presented, it can be deduced that total assets in the Czech Banking sector are lower than is usual in EU member states. Although the concentration of assets in the Czech Banking sector is above average for the EU, the assets of our largest banks are still lower than those of the larger banks in comparable EU countries.

This paper is aimed at addressing general characteristics of growth and development that concerns all transition countries before their accession to the EU when their convergence to the EU average gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is expected. By looking back at the GDP statistics of major industrial countries for the last 90 years, a question is posed why some countries get on a path of a fast growth while some others go from one secular crisis to another. In assessing the policies supporting growth it is concluded that conditions on the company and industry level are more important than national macroeconomic policies.

The issue of determining inter-market foreign exchange flows under dual exchange markets has been hotly debated. Typically the literature has concentrated on the behavior of the financial premium, leaving aside equally important aspects such the reasons for and characteristics of incomplete separation. Our analytical results suggest that cross transactions arise as long as the government changes the commercial rate. Time inconsistency of policy brings opportunity for leakages between two markets. We also find that the more patient the government, the less likely the occurrence of commercial depreciation and leakages will be. Then reputation could be as a deterrent to leakages

This paper evaluates Czech economic development during 2001 and is supplemented by the predictions of basic economic indicators for 2002 and 2003. This article is divided in several parts. In the beginning we focus on economic growth, including a marginal analysis of GDP and industrial production. It is possible to find a detailed net inflation analysis in Chapter three which consists of an explanation of current demand and supply factors and then we present an econometric estimate of the net inflation equation. This chapter includes impulse-response analysis. Raw material dependency and the intensity of Czech production is analyzed in Chapter four, including an econometric estimate of oil and gas prices. In the following chapter - Labour Market - we focus on gross nominal wage determinants in the Czech Republic. In the last two chapters we evaluate fiscal and monetary policy, including an detailed interest rate analysis.

This paper analyses various aspects of industrial restructuring across all ten Central and East European (CEE) candidate countries for EU membership during the last decade and provides also some comparisons with current EU Member States. The impressive structural adjustments that have taken place in CEE industries since the beginning of transition brought the structure of manufacturing industry in the majority of CEE candidate countries fairly close to the European pattern both in terms of production and employment. Technology-driven industries account for a growing share of exports in nearly all candidate countries, while labour-intensive industries have growing export shares only in less advanced candidates such as Bulgaria, Romania and in the Baltic states. The initial export specialization pattern of the more advanced CEE candidate countries has thus nearly completely reversed; a remarkable upgrading towards more sophisticated and less capital-intensive industries has occurred.

This paper deals with government interventions in agricultural credit markets in the Czech Republic. I first describe the institutional setting and the empirics of agricultural credit in the Czech Republic. I explain the activities of the Czech Agricultural Guarantee Fund and compare it with similar institutions dealing with the support of agricultural credit in transition and developed market economies. Then I introduce an adverse selection model of credit provision with proportional credit guarantees. The model distinguishes two market regimes - a developed post-transition market economy and a transition economy. This distinction between transition and post-transition economies leads to different results generated by credit markets. Most notably, there is a failure of collateral as a screening instrument in credit markets of transition economies. With economic stabilization collateral resumes its role as a screening instrument.

Leading economic indicators have a long tradition in forecasting future economic activity. Recent developments, however, suggest that there is scope for adding extensions to the methodology of forecasting major economic fluctuations. In this paper, the author tries to develop a new model, which would outperform the forecast accuracy of classical leading indicators model. The use of artificial neural networks is proposed here. For demonstration a case study for Slovene economy is included. The main finding is that, at the twelve months forecasting horizon, a stable and improved forecast accuracy could be achieved for in- and out-of-sample data.

This paper employs error-correction representation approach and conditional causality technique to assess the patterns of export-economic growth link in Slovenia. In general, the results support the existence of bi-directional causality between export variables and indicators of domestic economic activity. The evidenced bi-directional causality of exportoutput relation for Slovenia suggests that any characterization of a small country's growth as export-driven may be at least perfunctory. As the results imply, there are no trade-offs between whether to pursue a growth strategy of structural reforms for internal competitiveness with the goal of higher domestic growth and afterwards an increasing exports, or to apply trade policy for improving the international competitiveness and enabling the economy a quick response to foreign demand.

Domestic demand, especially private household consumption and fixed capital investment was the main engine of continuing economic growth. At the same time, strong domestic demand did not provoke regular inflationary pressures. Inflation has stopped to be a threat of macroeconomic stability since the last quarter of 2001. Therefore, the Czech monetary policy could follow the overall world trend in basic rate cuts, the appreciating Czech currency being, however, very reluctant to monetary policy steps. The slowdown in Western Europe was felt predominantly in the Czech industry, which was very sensitive especially to the decline of demand for Czech industrial exports to Germany. The scope of external imbalance was approximately the same as in previous year - low level of import prices helped to offset the negative impact of weakening foreign demand. The current account deficit was comfortably offset by ongoing inflow of FDI.

The paper contains an analysis of the current trends in the Czech economy, and a short-term outlook for 2000. The authors claim that the economy is going through a gradual turn from recession to stagnation and to a slight recovery. The main factors of the turn toward revival are exports, followed by private household consumption, while government consumption contributed only slightly to the increase of domestic demand. The authors see the main potential risk for the year 2000 in the need to stabilise economic growth and achieve its further acceleration. The success will mainly depend on a fast removal of financial barriers which the majority of Czech firms is now facing. Further inflow of foreign capital, growing competition pressures in the financial sector, the growth of exports, and a gradual increase of domestic demand are likely to help to overcome these barriers.

Did exceptionally low unemployment between 1990-1996 mean that the CzechRepublic had sacrificed more labour market flexibility and faster changes inthe structure of employmnet in exchange for social stability? Or had thecountry made use of its specific initial conditions and managed to followits own mode of labour market restructuring, without the necessity ofincreasing the rate of unemployment drastically? Does currently increasingunemployment accelerate the coversion of the structure of employment towardsthe EU-15 patterns? In attemting to answer the above questions, the paperargues that the Czech unemployment miracle has disappeared as soon as theparticipation rate had become stable, labour shedding accelerated and theeconomic policies responded to macroeconomic overheating. The main sourcesof structural changes in employment were massive labour force withdrawals inagriculture and industry, coupled with job-to-job movements of labour. But,the process of further structural changes has nearly been stopped, despitethe recent rise in unemployment. Instead of being a driving force of labourmobility, current unemploymnet bears predominantly cyclical features.

This article addresses the issue of macroeconomic policies in the pre-accession period. The key theme is an assessment of the relationship between the real and nominal convergence of the candidate countries towards the EU. Support for real convergence cannot procced on a long-term basis in contradiction to the nominal convergence criteria. Despite a renewal of growth in 1999, a whole range of persisting structural problems, chiefly in the fiscal area, confirm the benefit of voluntary pursuance of the nominal concergence criteria. Fof the central bank, the inflation criterion is particularly relevant. The issue of catchingup with the EU price level is discussed from this point of view. Neither the theoretical models (the law of one price and the Balassa-Samuelson effect) nor the empirical evidence provide arguments for abandoning the efforts for price stability. The most appropriate monetary policy regime linking the interests of monetary policy and government economic policy is inflation targeting.

In this paper we discuss the issue of the choice of exchange rate regimes in transitive economies and the effect of exchange rate policy on the development of macroeconomic indicators (e. g. the average growth rate of real GDP in domestic currency, the development of domestic inflation and the real exchange rate). Our analysis indicates that monetary and exchange rate policy is not a passive factor, at least in the medium term. Monetary policy should, in the first phases of transformation development, warn against two extremes: absolute stability even appreciation of the nominal exchange rate, or, on the contrary, chronic and severe depreciation.

This paper deals with the implementation of the inflation targeting regime in Poland. The study contributes to the discussion about opportunities and constraints of inflation targeting in the more advanced transitive economies. This analysis of monetary policy issues is based on an econometric investigation of the Polish inflation time series and on the estimation of the links between monetary policy instruments and inflation. In comparison with the Czech Republic, the Polish inflation targeting strategy faces more obstacles and limitations that are caused by the structural characteristics of Polish inflation and the country's less advanced money market.

In this article, we tried to estimate whether foreign direct investment in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland crowds in or crowds out domestic investment. We used a model of total investment that introduced, from the point of view of the recipient country, foreign direct investment as an exogenous variable. We found that for the time period 1990 - 2000 there was an evidence of crowding out effect in Poland. In Hungary we found a crowding in effect for the time period 1990 - 2000 as well as for the Czech Republic for the time period 1993 - 2000.

This paper is about a perspective East-West European partnership in a framework of coordinated economic policies, especially monetary policy, and a single monetary authority. The data on inflation and the service sector used to test the degree of convergence of 15 European economies versus Germany show that selected economies in the East are about to attain western standards but eastward enlargement might take place only in case of more structural changes in the East. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland are the countries likely to qualify for membership and join soon.

This article focuses on the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia) after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. It starts with the approach to SMEs at the early stages of economic transformation aiming at the reestablishment of a market economy and further deals with the systemic policy of the Czech government towards SMEs. In order to characterize the current business environment and performance of the sector, it offers results of empirical surveys as well as data published by the Czech Statistical Office. On the basis of analytical results there are formulated some policy recommendations.