What is behind the real appreciation of the accession countries' currencies? [An article from: Economic Systems]

This digital document is a journal article from Economic Systems, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
In the paper, we calculate real equilibrium exchange rates (EER) for EU accession countries and compare these with the actual exchange rate movements since the mid-1990s. The real equilibrium exchange rates are derived from models of macroeconomic balance and tested for econometrically. It is found that productivity increases can be regarded as one source of the observed PPI-based real appreciation of the accession countries' currencies. These productivity gains experienced in the process of economic catch-up imply an increased capacity to produce high-quality export goods and are a key driving force of exports. To a large extent real appreciation can, therefore, be viewed as an equilibrium phenomenon.