Economic relations with regions neighbouring the euro area in the ‘euro time zone

This paper reviews the economic, monetary and financial relations between the EU and the euro area and a set of countries in a broad set of neighbouring regions. The 80 or so countries are mostly classified as transition, emerging or developing economies and belong to four main regions: the Western Balkans; the European part of the Commonwealth of Independent States; the Middle East and Northern Africa; and Sub-Saharan Africa. In many respects, these countries are diverse; however, some common features can also be identified. One of these common features is the fact that the euro area is their largest trading partner and the largest originator of international bank credit, foreign direct investment and official development assistance; meanwhile, from a euro area perspective, while these countries account for a somewhat smaller share of external trade, they are important as providers of energy, other raw materials and agricultural products.

The CIS - Does the Regional Hegemon Facilitate Monetary Integration?

We consider the likely economic impact and prospects for monetary integration among Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Ukraine as part of the Single Economic Space they have agreed to set up. A monetary union among these countries poses three interesting issues for the structure and process of integration: they have already been members of a wider cur-rency union that collapsed, so it is necessary to handle the problems of his-tory; secondly the union would be of very unequal size with the Russian Federation outweighing the others taken together, so we must consider how the national interests would be balanced; lastly natural resources, particu-larly oil and gas pose problems for dependence and for the determination of the external exchange rate

Regional vs. Global Public Goods: The Case of Post-Communist Transition

The paper discusses the role of regional public goods vs. global goods in influencing postcommunist transition in Central and Eastern Europe and former USSR with special attention given to three particular factors: (i) external anchoring of national reform process; (ii) international trade arrangements and (iii) international financial stability. Our main finding is that that the EU, through the Eastern enlargement process, acted as the very effective regional public (club) good provider, whose influence across time and countries was correlated with better transition outcomes. In particular, the consolidation phase in democratization, institution building and structural transformation was successful in countries reforming under EU accession conditionality, but not under other forms of conditionality provided, for example, by the Bretton Woods institutions, . In the area of trade, gains from WTO accession were dwarfed by the impact of the opening of the EU trading block for accession countries. Finally, countries participating in EU integration showed more discipline in maintaining macroeconomic stability, while IMF programs were less effective in inducing stability in the absence of the European factor. This the main reason why CIS countries which got neither the EU accession perspective, nor even trade liberalization offer on the EU lag behind Central European, Baltic and Balkan countries in terms of democratization, rule of law, institutional stability and market-oriented economic reforms. However, due to observed ‘enlargement fatigue’ in the incumbent EU, the future attractiveness of the EU integration perspective and strength of the accessionassociated incentive system (in respect to countries of Western Balkans, CIS and Turkey) comes under question. There is also unclear whether European experience in providing regional public goods can be easily repeated in other geographic regions and to which extended can be used by the providers of global public goods.public goods, post-communist transition, European integration, trade liberalization, international financial stability

Regional vs. Global Public Goods: The Case of Post-Communist Transition

The paper discusses the role of regional public goods vs. global goods in influencing postcommunist transition in Central and Eastern Europe and former USSR with special attention given to three particular factors: (i) external anchoring of national reform process; (ii) international trade arrangements and (iii) international financial stability. Our main finding is that that the EU, through the Eastern enlargement process, acted as the very effective regional public (club) good provider, whose influence across time and countries was correlated with better transition outcomes. In particular, the consolidation phase in democratization, institution building and structural transformation was successful in countries reforming under EU accession conditionality, but not under other forms of conditionality provided, for example, by the Bretton Woods institutions. In the area of trade, gains from WTO accession were dwarfed by the impact of the opening of the EU trading block for accession countries. Finally, countries participating in EU integration showed more discipline in maintaining macroeconomic stability, while IMF programs were less effective in inducing stability in the absence of the European factor. This the main reason why CIS countries which got neither the EU accession perspective, nor even trade liberalization offer on the EU lag behind Central European, Baltic and Balkan countries in terms of democratization, rule of law, institutional stability and market-oriented economic reforms. However, due to observed 'enlargement fatigue' in the incumbent EU, the future attractiveness of the EU integration perspective and strength of the accession associated incentive system (in respect to countries of Western Balkans, CIS and Turkey) comes under question. There is also unclear whether European experience in providing regional public goods can be easily repeated in other geographic regions and to which extended can be used by the providers of global public goods.public goods, post-communist transition, European integration, trade liberalization, international financial stability

Determinants of Portfolio Flows into CIS Countries

This paper employs a standard Tobin-Markowitz framework to analyse the determinants of capital flows into the CIS countries. Using data from 1996-2006, we find that the Russian financial crisis of 1998 has had a profound impact on capital flows into the CIS (both directly and indirectly). Firstly, it introduced a structural shift in the investors' behaviour by shifting the focus from the external factors to the internal ones, e.g. domestic interest and GDP growth rates. Secondly, it also drastically changed the impact of a number of explanatory variables on capital flows into the CIS. Political risk was found to be the second most important determinant of capital flows into the CIS. Additionally, we report some strong evidence of co-movement between portfolio flows into the CIS and CEEC, coupled with strong complementarity between global stock market activity and portfolio inflows into the CIS. Interestingly, external factors tend to be of a higher significance than internal factors for the largest members (Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan) of the CIS; whereas domestic variables tend to have a greater impact on the capital flows into the smaller CIS countries.portfolio investment, CIS, the Russian crisis, emerging markets

International Capital Markets and Exchange Rate Stabilization in the CIS

In this paper, we examine the rationale for dollar and euro pegging in Russia and the CIS. We consider macroeconomic stabilization and transaction costs for international trade as rationales for pegging to the euro. Dollarization of international assets and liabilities are examined as determinants of exchange rate stabilization against the dollar. The impact of network externalities from a common anchor for all CIS countries is explored. Tests on de facto exchange rate stabilization reveal that dollar pegging has been pervasive in the CIS.CIS, Exchange Rate Systems

The CIS – does the regional hegemon facilitate monetary integration?

We consider the likely economic impact and prospects for monetary integration among Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Ukraine as part of the Single Economic Space they have agreed to set up. A monetary union among these countries poses three interesting issues for the structure and process of integration: they have already been members of a wider currency union that collapsed, so it is necessary to handle the problems of history; secondly the union would be of very unequal size with the Russian Federation outweighing the others taken together, so we must consider how the national interests would be balanced; lastly natural resources, particularly oil and gas pose problems for dependence and for the determination of the external exchange rate.monetary union; CIS; economic integration

Financial Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe

Central and Eastern European Countries have been severely affected by the 2008 financial crisis. Several ways of contagion of the financial turmoil worked at different strengths in the different coun-tries. Although the disparities of the effects of the financial crisis are rather large, there are a number of common explanatory features. Mechanisms of transmission of the global financial crisis to the CEECs and its effects on these countries are discussed in this paper.

Beyond the crisis: prospects for emerging Europe

This paper assesses the impact of the 2008-09 global financial and economic crisis on the medium-term growth prospects of the countries of central and eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, which began an economic transition about two decades ago. We use crosscountry growth regressions, putting special emphasis on a proper consideration of the crisis and robustness. We find that the crisis has had a major impact on the within-sample fit of the models used and that the positive impact of EU enlargement on growth is smaller than previous research has shown. The crisis has also altered the future growth prospects of the countries studied, even in the optimistic but unrealistic case of a return to pre-crisis capital inflows and credit booms