Macroeconomic Issues of Recovery in Transition Economies [antikvár]

Preface This volume contains some of the papers presented at the conference on "Macroeconomics of Recovery in East Central Europe" organized in Budapest in June 1995, supported by a grant of the PHARE-ACE Commission. Most of the papers presented at this conference have dealt with the decisive macroeconomic problems of recovery in the advanced transition countries. The discussion of the major macro- and some microeconomic issues facing the transition economies concentrated on the period when they emerged from a deep fall of output, which characterizes their initial period of transition from centrally planned economy. Although the causes of the initial output collapse are still being discussed, this conference tried to address the new phenomena of accelerating output recovery from the post-transition recession. Papers presented at the conference analysed the relationship between output recovery and the applied exchange rate and monetary arrangements, the role of fiscal policies in maintaining the sustainability of this recovery, and the impact of the emerging capital inflows on the macroeconomic imbalances and growth rates. The conference was organized in three sessions. One dealt with the exchange rate policy implications of transition and with recovery from the post-stabilization recession. Another set of papers discussed the fiscal and monetary issues, especially those related to public debt and fiscal deficit. The role of monetary policy in the rapidly opening transition economies was also treated. The third session of the conference discussed some of the microeconomic implications of economic recovery, including developments in foreign trade and the labour markets. This volume is also divided into three parts, reflecting the division of the issues at the conference. The first part contains the papers related to the exchange rate policy in transition economies. In the first paper Eduard Hochreiter writes about the conditions required to pursue a hard currency strategy in transition economies, along the lines applied by Austria. The author argues for adopting an exchange rate anchor during transition, including its impact on the credibility of policies, and