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This paper aims at pointing out the evolution in real and financial plans in order to adhere to the EMU, using a comparative approach, on the example of Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. The main results of the study are the following: the four countries have made notable progress in the years preceding the current crisis; however, considerable efforts are still needed in order to comply with the euro zone, in terms of living standards, economic structure, degree of openness of the economy, etc.; refer the financial convergence, directions are needed to increase the financial intermediation and financial depth in Romania and Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary recording slightly more favourable indicators. On the other hand, central banks, except the Polish one, should significantly improve the transmission mechanism of monetary policy upon the financial and real sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Central and Eastern Europe Countries (CEECs) have been shaped by the EU conditionality, meaning that these countries were obliged to develop their administrative capacities in completely convergence with the acquis communautaire in order to join the European Union. The 2004 and 2007 enlargement of the EU and the accession negotiations have brought a systemic transformation of the CEECs through what is known in the literature as Europeanization. It seems to be a strong connection between conditionality and Europeanization, the former giving way to the latter. Therefore the capacity and the willingness of candidate countries to transfer the acquis into the domestic legal context have had a significant influence in the way in which the Europeanization process has succeeded in inhabiting the governance system of the CEECs. Considering these, the purpose of this paper is to examine through which mechanisms it was realized the correspondence between EU conditionality and the process of central and eastern enlargement-led Europeanization which seems to have been internalized distinctively by the CEECs, where administrative resources to comply with European standards were lagging behind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Central and Eastern European countries have experienced significant imbalances starting with 2008 that have affected their business environment profoundly. Thus, the firms operating in the region have faced, and continue to face, difficulties and major challenges. Through this paper we aim at analyzing the key indicators that characterize the business environment of a country, and by analyzing their values through time, we want to compare the situation from ten countries from CEE. We analyzed the indicators for a period of eight years, between 2007 and 2014. This period presents interest because it comprises the period of the recent financial crisis. By using indicators characterizing the business environment we analyze the ease of doing business, but also the ease of getting credit, domestic credit to private sector and reforms adopted in order to improve the access to credit by the CEE countries. We also analyze the time needed to start a business and the regulations regarding start-ups, which may encourage or discourage the new firms to enter the market. The results obtained show that the CEE countries are starting to recover from the current financial crisis, but are still lagging behind the developed countries of the European Union. However, the business environment has registered a series of improvements in the majority of the analyzed countries in the last two years, improving especially the areas of starting a business, getting a credit and paying taxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although old, the debate on whether government's intervention in economic activities can stimulate economic growth once again rose within the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. They have passed a harsh transition process, pressed on by the intention to join the EU, which involved accelerating the degree of economic freedom and fostering growth, respectively. Despite meaningful progresses, these countries have still a lot left to do in order to strengthen a solid legal system that is able to guarantee a liberal economic system, protected from political influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we address the daunting challenge of current economic recovery by contributing to the better understanding of its secular feature. In so doing we devote special attention to the secular decline in innovativeness by raising three interlinked and interrelated explanatory phenomena: (i) lowering productivity in the new techno-economic paradigm; (ii) the effect of the different degree of employment protection; and (iii) the issue of pent up disruptive innovations. We argue that these phenomena are not black swans; however, they have been developing in commonly unnoticed increments by manifesting the so-called 'creeping normalcy' and being endogenous to the market system. The paper draws lessons to be learned for the Central and Eastern European Member States as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an engine for economic development of CEE countries, FDI inflows have contributed to creating new jobs and access to modern technologies; have had positive effects on balance of payments and state budget revenues. The purpose of this article is to highlight the implications of international financial and economic crisis of 2007 on FDI in CEE countries. Also, we realized a comparative approach of the factors that influence investors' decisions in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and a SWOT analysis of FDI in Romania at the end of 2009. The second part of the article represents an econometric analysis using SPSS of FDI impact on GDP and unemployment rate on the example of Romanian economy during 1991-2009. The fundamental hypothesis of econometric analysis is the following: it is a direct link between FDI and GDP, respectively, an inverse link between FDI and unemployment rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]