Descripción

This paper estimates the readiness of the Accession Countries of Central and  East Europe for EMU or for unilateral euroisation using a fuzzy clustering  algorithm. The variables to which the algorithm is applied are suggested  alternately by the criteria in the Maastricht Treaty (nominal convergence) and  by Optimum Currency Area theory (real convergence). The algorithm reveals that  Estonia and Slovenia are the leaders in both nominal and real convergence,  whereas the other countries from the 1998 Accession Wave have achieved  substantial results only in real convergence. Moreover, Poland is excluded from  the leading group in the most recent years due to its worsened economic  performance.