CEE Interest Rate Report for August 17 – August 28

By: The Quinnipiac University Economics Research Team, Michael Szwaja

Source: Eurostat and own calculations. Daily EMU convergence criterion bond yields (i.e., central government 10-year bond yields)

Massive interest rate movement in Slovakia distorts the above graph for the remaining Central European countries. All CEE rates except Slovakia went up over the two weeks. The rate in Slovakia was highly erratic during this period. A rise of more than fifty percent reversed to a drop of more than ten percent by week’s end. With an increase of over five percent Czech’s rate index rose by the most. Hungary, Romania, and Poland each saw small increases in interest rates and finished all within a few percentage points of each other.

HISTORICAL TRENDS

Source: Eurostat and own calculations. Daily EMU convergence criterion bond yields (i.e., central government 10-year bond yields). The center line is a rolling three-month average. The upper and lower boundaries are the average plus and average minus one standard deviation, respectively, for the same three-month period.

Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia’s interest rates remained relatively steady over the two week period. Poland fluctuated around its three-month average. Romania and Slovakia started and finished nearly one standard deviation below respective three-month averages while Hungary’s interest rate briefly went more than one standard deviation above its three-month average. Czech was an outlier compared to the rest of the listed countries by being the only one to finish the two weeks more than one standard deviation away from its rolling three-month mean.