Euro, dollar or Swiss franc: which currency had the greatest impact on the Hungarian, Polish and Czech economies during the global financial crisis?

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the impact of foreign currency dynamics on the fundamentals (basic indices of the economic performance) of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland during the financial crisis of 2007/2008 and its aftermath until 2017. The subject of the analysis are three currencies: the US dollar, the euro and the Swiss franc. The assessment of their impact on the fundamentals of the three above-mentioned economies is based on the joint volatilities of bond spreads and currencies. A series of copula-GARCH models was estimated. The research demonstrates that the impact of foreign currencies was the strongest in the case of Poland and Hungary, as these two countries were more dependent on loans in foreign currencies than the Czech Republic. Another finding shows that the impact decreased significantly in Hungary after its government introduced loan conversion.