This paper employs a quantile regression approach to explore the determinants and properties of international foreign exchange reserves in Serbia and North Macedonia, at various foreign exchange levels. The observed period covers quarterly data for 2005q1-2019q1. The results reveal quantile-dependent determinants of foreign exchange reserves and enable comparison between the two countries, showing co-movements between monetary policy and economic fluctuations. Following the estimates obtained in this research, the paper compares the role of foreign exchange reserves in Serbia and North Macedonia.

This paper examines the phenomenon of financial euroisation in Serbia, focusing on the liability side of the banking system. A time series model is estimated and evaluated using a monthly data sample from January 2007 to January 2016 for Serbia. The results of this paper show that the mean pattern of financial euroisation in Serbia is determined by the exchange rate, inflation, and the interest rate differential. Financial euroisation in Serbia is found to be volatile and to exhibit a clustering pattern. Of the estimated and tested models the ARCH (1) model is found to be best suited to explain the volatile behaviour pattern of financial euroisation in Serbia.

This paper brings releationship between real effective exchange rate and industry production in Croatia. Research sample consists of monthly data from January 2000 up to June 2019. Following wavelet coherence approach, empirical results reveal the relationship across time and frequency domain. The empirical obtained from wavelet coherence analysis and confirmed with conventional correlation analysis suggested positive relationship between industrial productivity and real effective exchange rate in Croatia, with depreciation as a factor of positive influence on industrial productivity. Research results provided in the paper also contributes to the debate on exchange rate policy in Croatia, extending the discussion on national exchange rate policy implications.

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Fiscal rules are among the cornerstones of macroeconomic policies in the European Union, both on the national and the supranational level. The importance of enacting and conducting the fiscal rules has become apparent after the expansion of public debts and budget deficits in the period of the global financial crisis. Besides the supranational rules, governments impose national fiscal rules in order to fulfill the convergence criteria for public debt and the budget deficit. Still, there is an open question on their influence on other economic parameters. This paper examines contextual variables that influenced the efficiency of implementing fiscal rules in 28 European Union countries. We observe the period of the last financial crisis and its aftermath when most of the countries introduced new or adjusted existing national fiscal rules, using two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The main goal of the paper is to study the impact of contextual variables on fiscal rules' efficiency scores. In the first stage, we specify the DEA model to estimate the relative efficiency for each observed country in each year in the period from 2008 to 2016. After that, in the second stage, the efficiency scores are regressed on several contextual variables to observe the factors that explicate the variation in DEA-efficiency.

Important aspect of ongoing discussions on the choice of exchange rate regime is its reaction to crisis as a strong and unexpected external shock; such was the case of Great Recession from 2008.-onwards. It is generally accepted that pegged exchange rate regimes are more sensitive to external shocks that might cause their long-term destabilization. Still, the soft pegged regimes (also entitled intermediate regimes) have fewer limits, with rules that allow more maneuver space for national strategy. The group of soft pegged regimes is wider, both in structure and scope, then those of hard pegged regimes. While countries with more flexible regimes might use exchange rate fluctuations as automatic stabilisator, (hard and/or soft) pegs impose some limitations. In the first place, there is stability goal that, in combination with strict regulatory rules, limits the monetary and exchange rate policy, demanding the use of other strategies, such is the internal devaluation. Secondly, these countries do not use wide scope of instruments and their crisis strategy is more rigid than those of other regimes. Finally, there are dilemmas on the optimality of exchange rate strategy during the pre-eurozone membership period, including the euro introduction strategy. These dilemmas deepen in terms of crisis. This paper focuses on comparison of hard and soft pegged regimes (the latter also entitled intermediate regimes) in selected European union accession countries, using „de facto“classification scale developed by International Monetary Fund. Despite the crisis, there have not been dramatic turbulences in terms of exchange rate policy in observed countries, but the general economic indicators clearly show the real depth of crisis and slow recovery. The question open for further discussion is whether such regimes should be obtained or abandoned during the crisis and what is their contribution to national economy. Furthermore, there are pros and cons of possible strategies, considering the European integration process.

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