On Some Currency Regime Considerations for the Visegrad Countries

This volume contains, for the most part, the papers and their formal discussions presented at an International Symposium "EUFORIKZ" (EURO, FORINT, KRONE, ZLOTY), held at Gerhard-Mercator-University Duisburg, Germany, on October 26-28, 2001. The focus of the volume lies on the following two questions:
Firstly, which lessons can the Visegrad countries draw from exchange rate theory to choose the best strategy for monetary integration into the European Union?
Secondly, which specific problems do the Visegrad countries face in their exchange rate policies?The first group of papers includes discussions of the policies of the European Central Bank, a general discussion of possible alternative options for the monetary integration of the accession countries, a discussion of the optimum currency area criteria with an emphasis on the endogeneity hypothesis, a discussion of inflation targeting and the proposal for euroization. The second group of papers analyzes specific problems of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic on their way towards the accession to the European Union as well as towards the fulfillment of the Maastricht convergence criteria.