Optimum Choice of the exchange-rate regime for the accession candidate countries

After having grown gradually from 6 to 15 members, the European Union (EU) is now preparing an enlargement that is unprecedented in both scope and diversity. After years of negotiations, ten candidate countries are poised to become members of the EU, which will increase its land area by 23% and population by 20% in 2004. Among the new members are eight formerly socialist Central and Eastern Europe countries (CEECs), i.e. Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. These countries are still in the last phases of their systemic transformation from central planning to a market economy (...)