The Mixed Blessing of Financial Inflows: Transition Countries in Comparative Perspective

The successful macroeconomic stabilization in Central and Eastern European countries has encouraged inflows of foreign capital badly needed to promote economic development. Strikingly, these countries have found capital inflows in their various forms to be a mixed blessing, threatening the macroeconomic balance that they have recently achieved.

These countries have learned that it is not easy to continue to attract foreign capital and simultaneously to reduce its adverse effects on inflation, the exchange rate and the current account, and to contain disturbances resulting from reversals of the flows. This book investigates recent experiences in Central and Eastern Europe and contrasts it with that of Latin America and East Asia, and suggests appropriate policies and lessons to be learned. The authors conclude that many features of, and policy dilemmas faced by, formerly centrally planned economies in Europe are similar to those in other emerging economies. However, certain unique characteristics such as data limitations and the fragility of the banking and financial systems, compound the problems faced by policy makers in Central and Eastern Europe.

This book will prove invaluable to policymakers and scholars interested in and responsible for international finance in transition economies.

Edited by János Gács, Senior Researcher, Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary, Robert Holzmann, Governor Oesterreichische Nationalbank, Austria and Michael L. Wyzan, EREO/USAID, Armenia