THE ECONOMIC BALANCE OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC AND SLOVAKIA DURING THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

The paper examines development of economic balance and effi ciency of monetary and fi scal policy in the Czech Republic and Slovakia during the crisis with the help of empirical verifi cation of Robert Mundell’s model of effective market classifi cation. Our main fi ndings 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