CEEC Accession Countries and the EMU - An Assessment of Relative Suitability and Readiness for Euro-Area Membership

Abstract

Eastward enlargement of the Eurozone will result in transition economies sharing a currency with well-established market economies. We compare the suitability of the candidates relative to current members at a similar time before joining, as well as their readiness to comply with Maastricht criteria. Using fuzzy clustering and principal components, we assess patterns of convergence, possible inhomogeneities within the future Eurozone and create readiness and suitability indexes. We find the CEECs more suitable in terms of OCA criteria and more ready than some of the current members once were. Moreover, they are not found to follow distinct convergence paths.