This book, written by a multinational team of experts, explores the changing face of central banking in Eastern Europe in the light of modern macroeconomic thinking, providing important and novel insights into the design of monetary policy institutions. With its authoritative content, this book will interest students and academics involved with money and banking, macroeconomics and Eastern European studies. Professionals working for financial institutions will also find plenty that will appeal within these pages.

The constitutional structure and statutory duties of the central bank lie at the heart of academic debate about the optimal design of monetary policy. There is a growing consensus that governments can achieve lower inflation at a reduced social cost by granting autonomy to their central banks. Nowhere is the debate more relevant than in the transition states of eastern Europe, where the newly established central banks' attempts to stabilise prices have come into conflict with the social objectives of national governments. This book, written by a multinational team of distinguished European academics, explores the changing face of central banking in eastern Europe in the light of the modern macroeconomic thinking, providing insights into the design of monetary policy institutions. The approach is to combine theory with case studies drawn from Poland, Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria.

Europe is in a period of rapid transition. The Single European Market has been completed, and many barriers to the free mvoement of goods, services, labour and capital have been removed. However the moves towards deeper European union, with full monetary union by 1999, have proved more problematic. Outside the EU, the collapse of communism has added more countries to the queue of EFTA nations applying for EU membership. This book, based on articles originally published in Economics and business Education which are here extensively revised and updated, takes a timely look at the European economy. Lively and accessible throughout, the book will be compelling reading for introductory students of economics.